>>The Cube presents Ignite 22, brought to you by Palo Alto Networks. >>Welcome back everyone. Happy afternoon. It's Lisa Martin and Dave Valante of the Cube. We are live at MGM Grand. This is Palo Alto Ignite 22, our second day of coverage. Dave, we've had some amazing conversations, as we always do on the queue, but cybersecurity one of my favorite topics. So interesting to hear what Palo Alto Networks is doing, how it's differentiating itself and how it's ecosystem is >>Growing. Yeah, well one of the things I always, I often use ServiceNow as a reference example. I go back to 2013, had a kind of a tiny ecosystem and then sort of watched it grow. And one of those key signs was when the global system integrators actually began to lean in Accenture, obviously world class, one of the, you know, definitely in the top, you know, they talk about top five QBs, Accenture, you know, top five GSI easily. >>Yep. So, and in fact, Accenture, we've got Rex Stex in here, senior managing director at Accenture Security. You guys have been the GSI partner of the year for Palo Alto Networks for four years in a row, six years plus strong partnership. Give us a little flavor and history of the pan of the Palo Alto partnership with et cetera. >>I think, you know, we started early, right? And I think as they've evolved, we've evolved our partnership with them and as they've gone, you know, to more of a software footprint with, you know, around cloud security and network security and sassy, we've, we've seen a lot of growth and we're super excited about the opportunity that's ahead of us and the meaningful outcomes that we've been providing our clients as it relates to, you know, vendor consolidation, toll consolidation, tech debt reduction. You know, there's a lot of opportunity here to simplify our clients' lives with them. And that's something we're super excited about. >>Simplification, consolidation, been a theme of the last couple of days. Talk about some of the joint accomplishments that you guys have achieved. I know that you developed a lot of offers across all of Palo Alto Network's, GTMs, what are some of the highlights that come to mind? I >>Think one of the things that we're most excited about, you know, that being client specific is what we've been able to do on, on, on the network side with sasi and, and zero trust, network access. You know, as when Covid hit, there was a lot of change that happened with remote workforce and, you know, clients couldn't log in because their VPNs were crashing left and right. And so we were able to, you know, go in and help stand up, you know, this, you know, zero trust network infrastructure and help our clients get back online and get their employees back to work in a productive manner. And then it's evolved with the hybrid work model over time. And so it's, it's been a, that's probably the most gratifying cause there was a real crisis at, at a certain point in time, you know, a couple years ago were >>There Rex, were there unintended consequences of that, you know, rapid, we were forced, you know, the forced march to digital in terms of just multiple tools, plugging holes, and then sort of stepping back, you know, post isolation economy saying, okay, hey, we got through this, but now we need to take a new direction, new >>Strategy. I think that there, there isn't an intended consequence if you look at, most clients have, I saw a number 76, we counted as around 80 different security vendors and tools that they managed because a lot of people went and went after best of breed type capabilities. And, and so what we've seen now is, is the need to, you know, rationalize that, you know, their, their infrastructure and their, and their capability and, and consolidate and reduce that and, and move to, you know, more of what I would call platform providers. Cause if you may have, when you have 80 products, you have 80 integrations, 80 points of failure, and it gets very complex and, you know, there's a lot of finger pointing. And so as we're starting to see clients take a step back and say, Hey, look, if I, you know, spend the time to, you know, I call it modernization, but you know, modernize my security infrastructure and footprint focused around, you know, automation, orchestration, leveraging, you know, true ml and I know there's are buzzwords, but, you know, but you know, using 'em in, in, in the proper fashion, right? >>They, they can, you know, reduce that footprint, save a bunch of money, right? And, and, and drive that cost savings and then help scale their business. Cuz you have all these different vendors and what security is typically in the digital footprint is the slowdown, right? We, we've typically been the bottleneck in the past. And what we're seeing with, with, with what, you know, we've been very focused on is helping our clients scale their security footprints and their infrastructure and, you know, through automation orchestration, I i, I always say some folks do it your mess for less with labor arbitrage and bodies, but they're not enough security people in the world to do this. And so we're very focused on automation and orchestration and driving that into, into the market. >>Yeah. So you don't want to be in the business of, of filling those holes with labor. >>Exactly. You >>Want to actually get paid for outcomes. >>A hundred percent. And everything we've done is we've tried to simplify things not only for, you know, big Accenture, but even for our clients so that, you know, we can be focused on business outcomes, not necessarily technology outcomes. Cuz doing technology for the sake of technology. Is that unintended consequence that you described earlier, >>Speaking of transformation and outcomes I should say, what are you hearing most from CIOs and CISOs in terms of what they need now to be able to transform, to deliver the business outcomes so that they can become secure data companies regardless of industry? Yep. >>I think the, the biggest thing we're seeing right now is the need to, you know, leverage true automation and orchestration. We have to break the headcount model. There's not enough security professionals in the world to do, you know, to solve the world's problems. In order to scale that, you know, it's one of the reasons we're, you know, partnering with Palo Alto is because of, you know, the capabilities and the investments they've made in innovation to help drive that automation and orchestration through, you know, numerous capabilities from stock transformation to to to sassy cloud security, et cetera. But our clients need scale. They need to be able to go fast and net pace and they need to, they need to do it with confidence securely. And that, that's one of the big focuses. But the other focus is, is we're starting to see a need to, you know, vendor consolidation in the market. You've seen the acquisitions, I'm sure you've talked to people in over the last couple days. You know, there's, there's a, a tremendous amount of consolidation going around. And what our clients, you know, are asking for is, Hey, I need to reduce the number of vendors I interact with. I need to simplify my infrastructure, I need to focus on automation and, and orchestration from that perspective, >>What's happening with multi-cloud? What are you hearing from from customers? You know, we hear a lot of the, the, the conversations about, oh it's, you know, it's, and I agree by the way, multi-cloud is kind of a symptom of multi-vendor, you know, Chuck Whittens thing about multi-cloud by default versus design, you know, it's good, good line and I think rings true, but, but what a customer's telling you in terms of the real challenges generally and then specifically around security. >>I think it's, you know, each cloud service product has their own security capabilities and security models and, and, and being able to train the people to be able to manage those different models. I think that's where, you know, tools like, you know, Prisma Cloud for instance come in and help clients be able to manage the security and compliance of those infrastructures in, in a way to do that. And then to be able to manage applications security consistently, right? It's not just the cloud itself, but it's actually the applications that may, you know, cross, you know, be for, for resiliency but you know, be in, you know, multi-cloud, you know, multiple clouds and being able to make sure you have consistent security across those. And I think, you know, one of the things that it's permeated is, is just the, with data and identity and, and you know, cloud infrastructure and tolerance management, it's been a big problem cuz it's like the wild, wild west. I always look, when I look at identity and the cloud and how it's done, it, it looks like 1995 identity. It's, it's, it's ridiculously backwards. And so, you know, we've seen things like, you know, keem that have come into play to help manage those relationships and, and simplify it across multiple clouds consistently, if that makes sense. >>Yep. >>You, you mentioned Prisma Cloud most recently Accenture and Palo Alto developed the Secure Cloud Express. Correct. Can you talk to us a little bit about what that is and what outcomes is it gonna enable? Yeah, >>So great question and we're pretty excited about this cuz what we did with that was we manage cloud, you know, our cloud environments for numerous customers. So we've developed hundreds of policies that, you know, we implemented in Prisma Cloud to manage, you know, multiple clients, our internal infrastructure. And what we did was we said, well, most of our clients have to build those from scratch. So what we said is we will come in, in the best of week of time and come in and, and do a data-driven exercise to show our clients, you know, where where they sit from a, from a security perspective as it relates leveraging Prisma cloud and, and those policies that we've created. And what, what that has led to is another step, which is where we're focused on auto remediation. So, you know, when you, when you get, when you get the findings, then what do you do with them, right? If you have hundreds or thousands in some cases we've had clients with 1100 findings and they just sit there and they go, whoa, you know, so to speak. And so what we've done is we try to take those highest, most frequent findings and build securities code to auto remediate those for clients so they can choose to implement that and work down those, you know, findings very quickly, which helps, you know, drive more value out of, out of their prisma cloud >>Purchases. Accenture obviously has deep industry expertise around the globe. What are you seeing in terms of industries actually? So as they digitize not just their IT transformation but a business transformation, there are starting to see companies, financial services in particular bring their business to their cloud, sify their business. And specifically I'm interested in what's happening at the edge with operations technology. We just talked about healthcare and and medical devices. What's happening there? How connected or disconnected is that to the rest of the estate, the multi-cloud on-prem, et cetera? I >>Mean, I think OT is, is fairly disconnected, right? Sure. From, from that perspective, obviously, but I, I, I think what we're starting to see is an uptick, you know, on, I think secure edge and Sassy will come to OT cause it's a better way. Because what happens is if someone, you know, gets into the network, they can traverse it, right? And if they can apply those zero trust principles to ot, which is you're talking to people that have been, you know, wearing hard hats Yeah. And engineers, that's a big shift for them. And so, but I think that you'll start to see that play more prevalence, you know, with the industries like, you know, financial services, we're seeing a huge uptick in cloud adoption, right? They were, they were slow to do it, but now they're, they're going at pace and faster than most, right? Yeah, sure. And I think, you know, healthcare is a, is another big one where we've seen a lot of migration and a lot of need for multi-cloud. Cuz you know, some, they may be running their analytics on, you know, Google and, and their workloads on Azure, right? Or aws. And so you're starting to see a lot of people leveraging the best of what each cloud provider does well >>From that. And, and just an aside on that Palo Alto survey, we saw construction was one of the hardest hit industries. Yeah. Which I, I was like, what? And then of course it's because they're not really focused on security. They're focused on building stuff. No, >>It's really interesting. We're working with a large builder, I can't say the name, but one of the things that they're looking to do is, you know, they're moving to the cloud and they're building the capability to manage some of the, you know, largest skyscrapers in the world, but also manage the OT sensors and also do selling that creating another business, not only just managing those buildings, but managing other people's buildings for them and ha and selling security as a service for that because they built that capability around their devices and, and, and switches, hvac, et cetera. Do, >>Do you think that because I mean, you know, the operations technology, they're engineers and they're hardcore, like, don't touch my stuff. Exactly. And so do you feel like as, I mean I know that business has kind of done a reach around everything, you know, be becoming connected, but do you feel like they're gonna be more on top of it then, then, then sort of the, the broad commercial market has been? Or is it gonna be wild West all over again? >>My hope is that, you know, us as gsi, you know, my fellow GSIs, that we will help our clients make the better decisions this time around and, and not go to the wild, wild west. And you know, we see a lot of it in manufacturing, you know, if you saw, you know, with the, you know, the invasion Ukraine, you know, one of the big groups that was hit was manufacturing, right? There was factory shut down all over the world, you know, and, and so, you know, and that is an OT environment, but I, you know, what we've seen is them are, you know, those clients take more serious steps to protect those environments cuz they're on, you know, windows 10 servers running, you know, large machines. So we're starting to see a lot more care and feeding in into those environments as well. >>Can I ask you a question about the conversations that you're having? That survey that Dave mentioned, it's was released yesterday. There's a board behind us, what's next in cyber? That was the survey and amazing data that came from it. Like 96% of organizations have been hit by at least one attack in the last year. They were surprised that the number was that high, but we know that no industry, no company is safe. But one of the things that the survey found that, that surprised me was that we always say, oh, security is a board level conversation. We know that to some degree. But what they found was lack of alignment between the board and the executive level. In your Accenture's relationships, I know you guys have deep relationships across organizations and their boards. Can you help bring the board together with the executives and, and really not just talk about cybersecurity, but really develop a cybersecurity transformation strategy that actually delivers resilience? >>Yeah, no ab absolutely. And we've, we, we actually took a step back and, and reorganized our business this last year. And one of those areas that we focused on was within strategy and the C-suite agenda, right? And we actually published looking at gia, it was either the CEO handbook, I think it's what we called it, but they helped them and board be able to, you know, drive more meaningful conversations that relates to risk and and whatnot. And so we're very focused on that right now. And it's, we need to up-level our conversations within the organization. Cause even the buyers in these large, you know, two years ago was mainly the cso, now we're dealing with the cio, CTOs, cfo because these are, you know, meaningful business conversations, right? That are driving business outcomes and security needs to be a business enabler, not, not a a, a bottleneck >>Is the chief data officer starting to emerge as, as we see, you know, Nikesh said yesterday in his keynote and we talked about it with him when he was here, security is a data problem. >>Yep. It is. It's a huge data problem. And we're starting to, you know, I think we've talked a lot about zero trust, but zero trust data is, is a, is a significant problem, right? Because that you talk about the wild, wild west is we see clients that have people that have in, you know, they, they have access to, you know, what we call dev development environment data, right? But then you find out that they can hop four levels over into production data and this been exposed to, you know, the wrong people, you know, not focused on that least privileged aspect. I think data's a real problem, you know, per na kesha's statement in the cloud. It's something that really needs to be addressed. And I think we're starting to see a lot of innovation around that area. Cuz what typical data security has always been, I have all these problems, it creates, I call it noise, right? I got thousands of findings and then just, you know, need just sit there and they go, what do I do? Right? It's too much. And so I think there, there's gonna be more intelligence around that and more, you know, what I call auto remediation, right? Being able to remediate those findings quickly from from that >>Perspective. I've been watching this board behind us. Yeah. It's this what's next in cyber. And people come in and they write, it's just been growing, you know, all week and somebody just wrote sock transformation. Yeah. We were just sort of talking about earlier what, what, in your estimation, what percent of organizations that you target. I understand that you're not going after the, you know, mom and pop organizations, but what percent of that, you know, fat middle and the tip of the pyramid, that a euro, that's your sweet spot. What percent of those organizations don't have a sock? >>I mean, most every organization has a sock. You know, I talked to, you know, CISOs of large financial service organization, they said, do we even need a sock anymore? It could be a virtual sock so to speak, but I think, you know, am was SOC transformation. I think we could potentially head to something like that. But you know, but what's really been strange is there's been, you know, what we call soar, right? Security, you know, orchestration, automation, whatever. And what another, >>Another acronym, their >>Acronym that I security that I might brain is >>Hold apologize. >>But you know, they've, people have never really driven the value out of it because they build these automation playbooks and, and for one company to do it and build 20 of 'em or 30 of 'em to ha it doesn't pay off in the long run. And what we're starting to see is people, you know, bring to the table more crowdsource these capabilities so that they can scale those sock transformations. Cause it's really about, you know, orchestration and automation. That's where, you know, nirvana comes in because it's not about people with headsets on looking at, you know, 20 screens. It's not helpful, right? The humans, we make mistakes. And so if we can automate as much of that as possible, get rid of the false positives, leverage AI and and ML to do that. And I think we're starting to see, you know, what I would call more advanced AI and ml. I think in the early days in security, AI and ML was very nascent and, and, and now you're starting to see, you know, more powerful concepts come in better learning, better outcomes out of that. >>Well, it was a lot of modeling in the cloud still is, but it's increasingly going toward real time inference and that's, you know, game changing. >>Agreed. >>Last question for you. What's are some of the things that are next on the plate for Accenture and Palo Networks? What's next up? >>I think, you know, we're very focused on, on Sassy right now in, in the market. And I think we think that is, you know, I think both of us think that's the next big wave, right? Because I think what we learned out of, you know, these last two and a half, three years is that these concepts work, but they can actually scale out to drive significant cost savings. I mean, if you look at Accenture, you know, we don't have a a network backbone anymore. We're pure cloud wan, right? We're leveraging the internet for that. And I think that and what we're trying to do with Palo Alto and driving, you know, cloud WAN and Sassy as a service, I think will be super, super meaningful. And, and, and, and >>Well that's interesting. That has implications for a number of companies out >>There. Yeah. Well I think, you know, it's obviously the, you know, it, it's a, it is a big implication for a lot of, a lot of, you know, our customers even, right? Yeah. And so we have to be very careful and thoughtful about how we work to make that happen over time. >>Right. A lot of opportunity. Rex, thank you so much for joining us on the program and really dissecting what Accenture and Palo Alto are doing, all the value in it for organizations across industries. We appreciate your insights. Yep. >>Thank you >>For Rex Dexon and Dave Valante. I'm Lisa Martin, you're watching the Cubes stick around. Dave and I will be right back with our next guest. This is the Cube, the leader in live, emerging and enterprise tech coverage.

(mellow music) >> Oh, welcome back to theCUBE. We continue our coverage here at AWS re:Invent 22. We're in the Venetian in Las Vegas, and this place is hopping. I'm tell you what. It is a nearly standing room only that exhibit floor is jam packed, and it's been great to be along for the ride here on Accenture's sponsorship at the Executive summit as well. We'll talk about Pfizer today, you know them quite well, one of the largest biopharmaceutical companies in the world but their tech footprint is impressive, to say the least. And to talk more about that is Wes Barnes, senior Director of Pfizer's Digital Hosting Solutions. Wes, good to see you, sir. >> Good to meet you, John. >> And Jon Harrison, the North American lead for Infrastructure and engineering at Accenture. Jon, good to see you as well. >> Good to see you as well. >> Thanks for joining us. >> Happy to be here. >> Alright, so let's jump in. Pfizer, we make drugs, right? >> Pharmaceuticals. >> Yes. >> Among the most preeminent, as I said biopharms in the world. But your tech capabilities and your tech focus as we were talking about earlier, has changed dramatically in the 18 years that you've been there. >> Yep. >> Now, talk about that evolution a little bit to where you were and what you have to be now. >> Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. When I started at Pfizer, IT was an enabling function. It was akin to HR or our facilities function. And over the past couple years, it's dramatically changed. Where Digital now is really at the center of everything we do across Pfizer. You know it really is a core strategic element of our business. >> Yeah. And those elements that you were talking about, just in terms of whether it's research, whether it's your patients, I don't want to go through the laundry lists the litany of things, but the touch points with data and what you need it to do for you in terms of you know, computations, what you, the list is long. It's pretty impressive. >> Yeah, yeah, for sure yeah. >> I mean, shed some light on that for us. >> We cannot release a medicine without the use of technology. And if you think about research now, a huge component of our research is computational chemistry. Manufacturing medicines now is a practice in using data and analytics and predictive machine learning and analytics capabilities to help us determine how to best you know, apply the capabilities to deliver the outcomes that we need. The way in which we connect with patients and payers now is wholly digital. So it's an entirely different way of operating than it was 10 years ago. >> And the past three years, pretty remarkable in many respects, to say the least, I would think, I mean, John, you've seen what Pfizer's been up to, talk about maybe just this, the recent past and all that has happened and what they've been able to do. >> Yeah, I mean, what is so exciting to me about working with a company like Pfizer and working in life sciences more broadly is the impact that they make on patients around the world world, right? I mean, think about those past three years and Pfizer stepped up and met the moment for all of us, right? And as we talk a little bit about the role that we played together with Pfizer with AWS in their journey to the cloud, it's so motivating for myself personally it's so motivating for every single person on the team that we ask to spend nights and weekends migrating things to the cloud, creating new capabilities, knowing that at the end of the day, the work that they're doing is making the world a healthier place. >> Yeah, we talk so much about modernization now, right? And it's, but it kind of means different things to different people depending on where you're coming into the game, right? If you've been smart and been planning all along then this is not a dramatic shift in some cases though, for others it is. Right? >> Yeah. >> Traumatic in some cases for some people. >> For sure. >> For Pfizer, I mean talk about how do you see modernization and what does it mean to your operations? >> Following our success of the COVID program of 2021, I mean it became evident to us that, you know we needed to maintain a new pace of innovation and in fact try to find ways to accelerate that pace of innovation. And as I said earlier everything we do at Pfizer is centered around digital. But despite that, and despite 10 years of consolidating infrastructure and moving towards modern technology, last year, only 10% of Pfizer's infrastructure was in the native public cloud. So we had a problem to solve. In fact, I remember, you know, we had to build up our clinical systems to support the volume of work that we were doing for COVID-19 vaccine. We were rolling things into our data center to build up the capacity to achieve what we needed to achieve. Moving to the public cloud became more imperative to try to achieve the scale and the modern capabilities that we need. >> And so where did you come into play here with this? Because obviously as a partner you're right alongside for the ride but you saw these inherent challenges that they had and how did Accenture answer the bell there? >> Well, so look, I mean we saw Pfizer react to the pandemic. We saw them seize the moment. We talked together about how IT needed to move quicker and quicker towards the cloud to unlock capabilities that would serve Pfizer's business well into the future. And together we laid out some pretty ambitious goals. I mean, really moving at a velocity in a pace that I think for both Accenture and AWS surpassed the velocity and pace that we've done anywhere else. >> Yeah, right, yeah. >> So we've set out on an ambitious plan together. You know, I was kind of reflecting about some of the successes, what went well what didn't in preparation for re:Invent. And you know, many of the folks that'll listen to this will remember the old days of moving data centers when you'd have a war room you'd have a conference bridge open the whole time. Someone would be running around the tile floor in the data center, do a task, call back up to the bridge and say, what do I do next, right? Then when I think about what we did together at Pfizer in moving towards the public cloud, I mean, we had weekends most weekends where we were running a wave with 10,000 plus discrete activities. >> Yeah. >> Wow. >> Right, so that old model doesn't scale. >> Right. >> And we really anchored, >> You have a very crowded data center with a lot of people running into each other. >> You'd have a whole lot of people running around. But we really anchored to an Accenture capability that we call myNav Migrate. I know you guys have talked about it here before so I won't go into that. But what we found is that we approached this problem of velocity not as a technical problem to solve for but as a loading and optimization problem of resources. Right, thought about it just a little bit different way and made sure that we could programmatically control command and control of the program in a way that people didn't have to wait around all Saturday afternoon to be notified that their next activity was ready, right? They could go out, they could live their day and they could get a notification from the platform that says, hey it's about your turn. Right, they could claim it they could do it, they could finish it, and that was really important to us. I mean, to be able to control the program in that type of way at scale. >> Yeah, by the way, the reason we went as fast it was a deliberate choice and you'll talk to plenty of folks who have a five year journey to the public cloud. And the reason we wanted to move as fast as we did and Jon talked about some of it, we wanted to get the capabilities to the business as quickly as we could. The pace of innovation was such that we had to offer native cloud capabilities we had to offer quickly. We also knew that by compressing the time it took to get to the cloud, we could focus the organization get it done as economically as possible but then lift all boats with the tide and move the organization forward in terms of the skills and the capabilities that we need to deliver modern outcomes. >> So, you know, we talk about impacts internally, obviously with your processes, but beyond that, not just scientists not just chemists, but to your, I mean, millions of customers, right? We're talking, you know, globally here. What kind of impacts can you see that directly relate to them, and benefits that they're receiving by this massive technical move you've made? >> Pfizer's mission is breakthroughs that change patient lives. I mean, the work that we do the work that everybody does within Pfizer is about delivering therapies that, you know provide health outcomes that make people live longer, live healthier lives. For us, modernizing our infrastructure means that we can enable the work of scientists to find novel therapies faster or find things that perhaps couldn't have been found any other way without some of the modern technologies that we're bringing to bear. Saving money within infrastructure and IT is treasure that we can pour back into the important areas of research or development or manufacturing. We're also able to, you know, offer an ecosystem and a capability in which we connect with patients differently through digital mechanisms. And modern cloud enables that, you know, using modern digital experiences and customer experience, and patient experience platforms means that we can use wearable devices and mobile technologies and connect to people in different ways and offer solutions that just didn't exist a couple years ago. >> And so, I mean, you're talking about IoT stuff too, right? >> 100%. >> It's way out on the edge and personal mobile, in a mobile environment. And so challenges in terms of you know, data governance and compliance and security, all these things, right? They come into play because it's personal health information. So how, as you've taken them, you know to this public cloud environment how much of a factor are those considerations? Because, you know, this is not just a product a service, it's a live human being. >> Yeah. I mean, you start with that, you think about it through the process and you think about it afterwards, right, I mean, that has to be a core factor in every stage of the program, and it was. >> So in, in terms of where you are now, then, okay, it's not over. >> It's never over. >> I mean, you know, as good as you are today and as fast as you are and as accurate and as efficient. >> Yeah. >> Got to get better, right? You got to stay competitive. >> Yeah. >> So where do you find that? Because, you know, with powers being what they are with speed and what it is how much more is there to squeeze out of this rock? >> There's a lot more to squeeze out of the rock. If you think about what we've done over the past year it's about creating sort of a new minimum viable product for infrastructure. So we've sort of raised the bar and created an environment upon which we can continue to innovate that innovation is going to continue sort of forever at this point. You know, the next focus for us is how to identify the business processes that deliver the greatest value ultimately to our patients. And use the modern platform that we've just built to improve those processes to deliver things faster, deliver new capabilities. Pfizer is making a huge investment in digital medicines therapies that are delivered through smart devices through wearables using, as I said technology that didn't exist before. That wouldn't be possible without the platform that we've built. So over the past year, we've come a long way but I think that we've effectively set the table for all of the things that are yet to come. >> So, Jon, how do you then, as you've learned a lot about life science or, and certainly Pfizer with what they're up to, how do you then apply, you know, what you know about their world to what you know about the tech world and make it actionable for growth to make it actionable for, for future expansion? >> Yeah, I mean, we start by doing it together, right? I think that's a really important part. Accenture brings a wealth of knowledge, both industry experience and expertise, technology experience and expertise. We work together with our clients like Pfizer with our partners like AWS to bring the best across that power of three to meet clients where they're at to understand where they want to go, and then create a bespoke approach that meets their business needs. And that's effectively what we're doing now, right? I mean, if you think about the phase that we've just went through, I mean, a couple of fast facts here no pun intended, right? 7,800 server instances across 11 operating system versions 7,500 databases across 20 database versions, right? 4,700 applications, 350,000 migration activities managed across an eight month period. >> In eight months. >> Yeah. But that's not the goal, right? The goal is now to take, to Wes' point that platform that's been developed and leverage that to the benefit of the business ultimately to the benefit of the patient. >> You know, why them, we have we've talked a lot about Pfizer, but why Accenture? What, what, what's, 'cause it's got to be a two way street, right? >> We've had a long partnership with Accenture. Accenture supports a huge component of our application environment at Pfizer and has for quite a long time. Look, we didn't make it easy on them. We put them up against a large number of world class SIs. But look, Accenture brought, you know, sort of what I think of as the trifecta here. They brought the technical capabilities and knowledge of the AWS environment. They brought the ability to really understand the business outcomes that we were trying to achieve and a program leadership capability that, you know I think is world class. And Jon talked about myNav, you know, we recognized that doing what we were trying to do in the time that we were doing it required new machinery, new analytics and data capabilities that just didn't exist. Automation didn't exist. Some people experience capabilities that would allow us to interface with application owners and users at a velocity and a pace and a scale that just hasn't been seen before at Pfizer. Accenture brought all three of those things together and I think they did a great job helping us get to where we need to be. >> When you hear Jon rattle through the stats like he just did, right? We talk about all, I mean, not that I'm going to ask you to pat yourself on the back but do you ever, >> He should. >> Does it blow your mind a little bit, honestly that you're talking about that magnitude of activity in that compressed period of time? That's extraordinary. >> It's 75% of our global IT footprint now in the public cloud, which is fantastic. I mean, look, I think the timing was right. I think Pfizer is in a little bit of a unique position coming off of COVID. We are incredibly motivated to keep the pace up, I mean across all lines of business. So, you know what we found is a really willing leadership team, executive leadership team, digital leadership team to endorse a change of this magnitude. >> Well, it's a great success story. It's beyond impressive. So congratulations to both you on that front and certainly you wish you continued success down the road as well. >> Thank you. >> Thank you gentlemen. >> Thank you. >> Good job. >> Pfizer, and boy, you talk about a job well done. Just spectacular. All right, you are watching our coverage here on theCUBE, we're at the AWS re:Invent 22 show. This is Executive Summit sponsored by Accenture and you're watching theCUBE the leader in high tech coverage.

(upbeat music) >> Welcome back to Las Vegas, we're at Reinvent 22, AWS's big show going on here at the Venetian. Several thousand, tens of thousands of folks packing that exhibit four and going to sessions and also learning a lot about what's going on in the cloud space. And today we're going to talk about speed, velocity, to be specific. And with me to do that is Chris Wegmann who's the global technology and business lead for the Accenture AWS business group. And Chris is with Accenture. And then Erik Farr immediately on my right, is the global technology leader again for the AWS business group, but at AWS. So very similar titles guys, you're making it tough on the host. But glad to have you with us here. Really appreciate the time. So let's talk about velocity, you know, what's that all about? And Erik, I'll let you jump in on that. And then Chris, you go from there. How about that? >> Yeah, so with velocity, it's really about innovation. It's really about trying to speed the way that we help our customers, not just innovate through the AWS services, but with Accenture. With their ability to come in and really just kind of bring their expertise in industries and in the technology underpinnings and kind of all of the aspects of what we do together as a partnership. >> Okay. Chris? >> Yeah, so when we came up with a concept around velocity, we worked backwards from the customers the traditional Amazon way, right? So, we looked across a lot of the programs we were doing with our customers as well as we were doing internally when we were building assets to take to the market on AWS. And we found we were spending way too much time, anywhere from six to eight months just getting all the foundation in place, all the integration in place, getting the services to the point where we could actually build on top of it or our customers could build on top of it. And we got challenged. We said, there's got to be a better way, right? And so we took a different look at it. We said, can we go build an application? Can we go build code versus accelerators or our blueprints or that type of stuff that really would allow us to walk into a customer or walk into one of our internal organizations that had a an idea around an application or solution to be built on AWS to take to our customers as a service. And said can we go through just a very simple set of checklist, predefined architectures, predefined solutions and that stuff, and can we just crank it out, right? Can we, and that's what we've built. We built this tool and platform based on that concept. So it's designed and it is helping us internally as well as our customers just go that much faster and get to that innovation that Erik talked about. >> So how did it happen between the two of you? >> Yeah. >> It's not easy, right? I mean, as good as your culture is there's still going to be some bumps along the way right? And so how did that evolve? What was that process like? >> Yeah, it's a great question. So I've been working with Accenture for over five years, working with Chris and other people at Accenture. And over those years we've spent countless discussions with our customers all around the world. And just like Chris said, we see all of the different scenarios that our customers are having to deal with. We see the pain points, we try to figure out how do we get better next time? How do we do this in such a way that allows them, those customers to really kind of innovate using AWS, which is what we're all trying to get to. And during that process we started to realize there's a few key themes that we're seeing, right? Not just the foundations, right, what you build off of at the base level, but the data aspects. Like how is a customer going and developing their data lake, so their data meshes, right? How is this happening? And what we've realized is that we are kind of doing that on a custom basis often and we realize we could actually speed that much faster, faster to value, faster to customer appreciation and additional usage and development of their solutions on AWS. >> So I look at it is, from the beginning we started the business group and the reason why we have very similar names is 'cause we represent each side of the organizations that are here. And when we started the business group seven years ago, the whole idea was better together, right? We should be able to come together and help our clients move that much faster, right? And that's what really was at the foundation of this, right? And how we built this, right? We came together, we both saw the problems, right? Obviously AWS has an immense set of services, has an immense set of capabilities. We had a lot of experience of implementing these. Came together, worked together to build this platform. And it's been a great journey, right? I mean, it's great to see the experiences from both sides come together. Some of the common problems, we each had different ways of addressing them and we had to go and debate, which was the best way. And we really are leveraging our joint customers here as well is to get inputs from them since we were working backwards for them. We've now taken this and pulled them into it and really gotten inputs from them on really what they're looking for above and beyond the services they have today. This is designed not just to be something we go use at the beginning of a journey, right? A cloud journey, it's to help customers continue through their journey as well. >> So, and I might have missed this, so I apologize if I did. But we always talk about speed, right? Everybody's about faster, quicker, more efficient and that. So what makes velocity a unique animal in that respect? What exactly is it delivering then for a customer that isn't just kind of baked into the services you'd be proposing to them anyhow? >> Yeah. So first off velocity is designed with automation at the core, right? So instead of having people going in and making changes or anything like that, it's all completely code backed and automated, right? So that alone allows for immense ability for us to go in and actually accelerate that journey for the customer. But in addition to that, because velocity was all developed to work together with this code, it actually allows these pieces and these components to be deployed together, to work together and to ultimately support that customer use case without actually having to go and recreate that every time. >> Okay. And can you gimme an idea, Chris, about somebody or at least how this has been put into practice then yeah? >> So I'll give you a couple examples. One, internally, right? So as part of our relationship, we're investing in these joint industry solutions, right? So industries, we're working with our different industry clients to solve industry specific problems, right? They're not thinking about, okay, let me go lay down a cloud foundation and go do that. They said, I've got a problem I want you to fix. Insurance is a great example, the underwriting processes and insurance, right? So our insurance teams really looked and said, okay, this is what we're going to go build. This is what we need to modernize that process. So instead of going back and going and building all the components they needed, building a data lake, right? Figuring out how data lake's going to work together, build the automation to create all the different EC2 instances and all the different services, security, all that stuff. You know, we were able to very quickly take velocity, go through a very short process with them, understand what they needed and use that code to create that entire environment. And it's not tied to that once it's created, right? So at that point you can still take the updates that we're giving on new services and things like that, but it's their environment, they're able to build on top of it. And it allowed them to rapidly create this insurance platform, right, that they're now taking out into clients. We're taking that same platform we use there and embedding it in every offering, every service that we give to our customers. So whether we're going out and build a cloud foundation, right? Whether we're rebuilding a cloud foundation because hey, it didn't stay up or keep up with the new services that came out from AWS, or we're going and building a data lake, right? Our customers want to take, they don't want to have to do all that heavy lifting in a lot of cases. They don't want it to go make a lot of those hard decisions, right? They want it kind of rebuilt. And what I love about velocity from the beginning, Erik talked about blocks, building blocks, right? And we also heard from our customers is, "I don't want to buy just one thing, right? And I have one size fits all. Hey, I'm really want something around data. Can you gimme that block? I really need something around compliance. Can you gimme that block?" Good example in Accenture, the compliance portion is an area that our internal organization really wanted. So we were able to give them that block. So we're hopeful that this just gives our clients that much more flexibility and move that much faster. >> So, go ahead EriK. >> Yeah, I was going to say I think to to the point too, the other aspect that we get with velocity is the idea and that the vision is that it's designed to be evergreen. And what that means is as AWS, as we release new services to the market, like we're doing this week right? We as the joint development group of velocity are taking those new services, those new features and updating them so that those functionalities are available to our customers that are already using velocity or that are going to use velocity into the future so that they're all taking advantage of it without having to go and do it into their own environments. >> That's what I was asking you about, about if there's a 2.0 down the road or I mean, how do you meet those growing needs and new capabilities that maybe don't exist now but they will a year from now, six months from now? Yeah so, what's on the drawing board right now? >> Yeah, so yeah, just I'll start. The one area that we're really looking at heavily, so the the velocity fabric is really just the underpinning technology that we've already been talking about. We've also got a set of activators, which is really the fact that we're kind of joint deploying this to our customers. But to answer your question, we have a concept of accelerators. So these accelerators are there to be developed over time and they're going to allow us to take those customer use cases that are typically kind of at a microservice level, right? Something smaller than an entire solution or an entire application. And use those to accelerate either the development of solutions into our customer environment or to accelerate our ability to create solutions to then take it out to our customers. So that's on the roadmap for '23 and beyond. >> So I'll build on what Erik was talking a little bit. A 2.0 is actually today, right? Multiple new services came out today, obviously through the site partnership, we had some insights on what's coming, right? And we could start building to those and start knowing customers are going to want to use those. And the idea of velocity is they don't have to go and figure that out themselves, right? So we'll be able to hand that off fairly shortly after those services are released to general availability. And the customers of Velocity will be able to start using 'em, right? And they don't have to go figure out how to integrate 'em and so on. So that's what's in the future. We'll continue to do that, right? We're committed to this. These industry solutions are going to grow, right? I mean that was one of the big reasons we built this. We knew we were going to be building a lot of these industry solutions. We already got several of 'em that are out in the market and we need this platform to do that. So you'll see a lot of velocity powered industry solutions coming out of Accenture. >> Who came up with the name? >> It's a great question. We wanted something around speed, right? 'Cause that's what it, further, faster. >> BLO did it, right? >> Exactly right. Everyone loves speed, right? And that's what we're talking about. So we really looked at lots of names, obviously, and Velocity is one of those ones that just stuck. It felt really right. It felt like it captured what we were trying to do in the market. You know, Accenture, we don't name a lot of things one off, right? They're really focused on what they do. And this was an exception to that because we thought, and we think that it's really going to drive the speed of our customers. And that was a challenge. And we're starting to see that. We're starting to see the improvement and speed that we can get our customers into the cloud. It's awesome. >> Yeah, it caught my attention right away. >> Yeah. >> So success on nicely done there. >> But I also think that velocity is not just about speed, it's speed in the right direction, right? >> Oh, sure. It's meant to design it in the way that our customers are leading and that we can then go along that journey with them. >> Right, yeah. The last thing you want is to go really fast in the wrong way. >> That's exactly right. That's exactly right. >> That's bad recipe. And you've had very few of those. You've had a lot of good recipes. Thanks for the time fellas, we appreciate. >> No, thanks for having us. >> All about Velocity and that offering going out to the marketplace in a, I guess a modernized version. Could you call it modernized now? By the way, it's only been around for couple years. It's all modernized. You are watching the executive summit sponsored by Accenture and also theCUBE, which is the leader in tech coverage. (upbeat music)

well you're watching the cube and I knew that you knew that I'm John Walls we're here in Las Vegas it's re invent 22. Big Show AWS putting it on the Big Show here late in 2022 that's going really well we're at the executive Summit right now sponsored by Accenture and we're going to talk about that relationship between Accenture and AWS um kind of where it is now and where it's going you know even bigger things down the road to help us do that two guests Andy Tay who's a senior managing director and the Accenture AWS business group lead at Accenture Andy thanks for being with us thanks for having me and Sarah whose last name was one of my all-time favorites all good because it is it's all good right okay it's all good Sarah all good worldwide leader of accenture's AWS business group for AWS and thank you both again for being here so let's talk about the relationship just in general high level here 30 000 feet a lot of great things have been happening we know a lot of great things are happening but how's this all you think evolved how did how has this come about that you two are just inextricably linked almost here in the cloud space Sarah why don't you jump on that yeah I'd love to um I think one of the the strongest factors that causes that Synergy for us is we both work backwards from our customer outcomes and so just by consistently doing that taking those customer signals um really obsessing over our customers success we know what we're marching towards and so then we kind of extract those themes and really work together to think about okay when we look at this holistically how do we go bigger better faster together and accomplish and solve those customer problems yeah Andy yeah John let me just maybe add and you know to amplify you know what Sarah just touched on um we both have common to our culture this notion of working from the client's perspective first so really delivering to the clients values or um you know in aws's parlance it's you know customer and so that's at the core and when we keep that at the core everything else becomes really easy where we invest what we build key clients we focus on what our team structure is et cetera Etc that's really easy so that sort of core core pillar number one in terms of our sort of you know success factors the second thing that I think really helps us is our sort of scale geographically you know certainly from an Accenture standpoint as you know John we're north of 800 000 people globally um couple that with aws's strength we really do have you know a field depth and breadth across the board that allows us to sort of see and feel what's happening in the market and allows us really to see around the corners as we like to think and say um and and that helps us be intentional on what we do um and then the third thing is really us we might know what we do but we sort of need to then play to our strengths and as you know we're two very different companies one focus on the technology side the other you know focus on the technology Services although we'll touch on you know some of the changes we're looking at as we go forward but that sort of playing to strength is key as well for us as a third pillar of success and so keeping those three things at the core really helps us move you know day to day and year by year and that's what you see in this continued partnership so what are you hearing from your customers these days we've talked a lot already today and it's kind of the buzzword you know modernization right everybody's talking about this transformation I don't care if you're in Mainframe or where you are everybody wants a modernized right now um you know what are you hearing from customers in that regard and I'm sure everybody's in a different state different yeah frame of mind you know some are embracing some are dragging uh what what's your take on the state of play right now well and I think it's like especially in these macroeconomic moments that we're in um time to value is critical for our customers um and then we have the talent shortage but even with those our customers still need us to solve for sustainability and still focus on inclusion diversity and equity and so we can't lower the bar in anything that we've already been doing we need to just keep doing more and building with them and so I think um for us really getting to the to the meat of what our customers need modernization is a big one but we're still seeing just so many of our customers look at basic transformation right how how do I dip in how do I start to move my environment move my people and get ready for what I need to do next for my business and so that that is a challenge and like we said with with the markets as volatile as they are right now I think a lot of customers are just trying to work with us to figure out how to do that in the most optimized and efficient way I just want to kind of rub people on the head and say it's going to be all right I mean it's so volatile as you pointed out Sarah right yeah I mean the market up and down and we're worried about a recession and companies and their plans they want to be Forward Thinking yeah but they've got to you know keep their powder dry too in some respects and get ready for that rainy day you know John it's funny um because you would think you know you've got the one hand you know rub that you know it's gonna be all right and and then on the other end you'll you know maybe clients should sort of hold temper and you know sort of just pause but I think clients get it they see it they feel it they understand the need to invest and I think you know there's a recent study back in 2008 those clients you know Sarah and I were reading the other day those clients who didn't invest ahead of those you know major if you remember those macroeconomic downturn times they came out really on the bad side um and so clients now are realizing that in these times these are the moments to invest and so they get it but they're faced with a couple of challenges one is time Sarah touched on you just don't have time and the second is Talent so we're working in a very intentional way on what we can do to help them there and and as you'll hear later on from Chris Wegman and Eric Farr um we're launching our velocity platform which really helps to compress that type and and get them faster you know time to Value we're also being very intentional on talent and how we help their talent so you know rotate so that we're not just taking the technology Journey but we're also having the people journey and then the third thing Sarah and I really focus on with our teams is figuring out new ways new sources of value for our clients and that's not just cost that's value the broader set and so we find that in moments like this it's actually an opportunity for us to really bring the best of AWS and Accenture to our clients well you hit value and I always find this one kind of tough because there is a big difference between cost and value my cost is X right whatever I write on my chat that's my cost so but but how do you help clients identify that value so that because it's you know it can be a little nebulous right can it not I mean it's uh but you have to validate you got to quantify at the end of the day because that's what the CEO wants to see it's what the CIO wants to see yeah you've got to identify values so how many how do you do that yeah yeah I mean we we have many different ways right velocity which Andy kind of touched on I think is is really um it's our foundational approach to help customers really kind of enter into their Cloud journey and focus on those key factors for Success right so we've got ISB Solutions built in there We've Got Talent and change built in we've got kind of what we're calling the fabric right that foundational technology layer and giving our customers all of that in a way that they can consume in a way that they can control and you know different modules essentially that they can leverage to move it's going to be tangible right they're going to be able to see I've now got access to all these things that I need I can move as I need to move and I'm not constantly you know looking around figuring out how to lock it all together we've given them that picture and that road map on how to really leverage this because we we need to be able to point to tangible outcomes and so that's critical yeah proof's got to be in the pudding and and you know to Sarah's point I think sort of we're entering into this sort of new dare I say new chapter of cloud and then you know sort of the first chapter was sort of those outcomes were around cost you know I've moved you into the cloud you can shut down your data center but now we've sort of got other sources of value now Beyond costs there's news new sources of revenue how do I become a platform company on top of the AWS cloud and then you know eke out new Revenue sources for myself how do I drive new experiences for my customers yeah um how do I maybe tap into the sustainability angle of things and how do I get greater Innovation from my talent how do I operate better in a Sarah said how do I become more Nimble more agile and more responsive to Market demands and so all those areas all those Dynamics all those outcomes are sources of value that were sort of really laser focused on and just ensuring that as a partnership we we help our clients on that Journey so what do you do about talent I mean you brought it up a couple of times UTP has um in terms of of training retaining recruiting all those key elements right now it's an ultra competitive environment right now yeah and there might be a little bit of a talent Gap in terms of what we're producing right so um you know how do you I guess make the most out of that and and make sure you keep the good people around yeah Talent is an interesting one John um and we were just touching on this uh before we got here um you know sort of from an Accenture standpoint um we're obviously focused on growing our AWS Talent um we've now got I think it's north of 27 000 people in Accenture with AWS certifications north of 34 000 certificates you know which is absolutely fantastic a small City it's just I mean it is very intentional in building that um as AWS rolls out new Services Adam touched on a whole bunch of them today we're at the core of that and ramping and building our talent so that we can drive and get our clients quicker to their value and then the second area of focus is what do we do to help our clients Talent how do we train them how do we enable them how do we you know get them to be more agile and you know being able to sort of operate in what we call that digital core operate in the cloud how do we do that and so we're focused um in in capabilities in fact our Accenture head of talent and people and change Christie Smith John is is here this week just for that and we're exploring ways in which we can get tighter and even more Innovative Around Talent and so I ultimately that that bleeds over to where the partnership goes right because if you can enhance that side of it then then everybody wins on that in terms of what you think you know where this is going yeah yeah it's already you know pretty good setup uh things are working pretty well but as the industry changes so rapidly and and you have to meet those needs how do you see the partnership evolving as well to meet those needs down the road we we have a very fortunate position in that our CEOs are both very engaged in this partnership and they push us think bigger go faster figure it out let's ride and there are definite pros and cons and some days I'm flying this close to the Sun but um it isn't a it's an absolute privilege to work with them the way that we get to and so we're always looking I mean Auntie said it earlier this is the relationship that helps us look around corners we've raised the bar and so we're constantly pushing each other pushing our teams just innovating together thinking it all through on where are we going and like I said reading those tea leaves reading those themes from our customers like hey we've just had five customers with the same similar feeling problem that we're trying to solve or we ran into the same issue in the field and how do we put that together and solve for it because we know it's not just five right we know they're more out there and so um I think you know it's it's leadership principles for us right at Amazon that guiding think big um you know insist on high standards that that'll always be core and Central to who we are and then you know fortunately Accenture has a really similar ethos yeah quick take on that Andy yeah I think as we look out you know I think um we're going to we've already seen but we're going to see this continued blurring of Industries um of um you know sort of clients moving into other Industries and yeah sort of this sort of agitation Market agitation um and so I think disruption you know disruption and and we're being you know focused on what do we need to be to do in order to help our clients on those Journeys and and to continue to you know get them you know faster Solutions is an area that we you know we are um really looking at and these are solutions that are either industry Solutions you'll hear a couple of them this week um you know we've got our insurance solution that we're we've developed as an intelligent underwriting capability leveraging AWS AIML to sort of be intelligent and cognitive um you know we've got other Solutions around the around Industries energy and Life Sciences but then also intelligent applications that might be touching you know areas I think earlier today Adam talked about AWS supply chain and that's an area that we are focused on and and proud to be a part of that and we're working very very closely with with Amazon on that uh to help you know our clients move ahead so I think we're going to see this continued blurring and we're going to obviously you know keep addressing that and just keep iterating well it looks like a relationship of trust and expertise right and it's worked out extremely well and uh if this is any indication where the interview went uh even better things are ahead for the partnership so thank you thank you for chiming in I appreciate your perspectives yeah thank you it's been great we continue our coverage here on thecube we're at re invent 22 we're in Las Vegas and you're watching thecube the leader in technical coverage foreign

(bright upbeat music) >> Well, hello everybody. John Walls is here on "the CUBE". Great to have you with us as we continue our series here at the AWS Executive Summit sponsored by Accenture. And today we're talking about public service and not just a little slice of public service but probably the largest public sector offering in the UK and for with us or with us. Now to talk about that is Lianne Anderton, who is in with the Intelligent Automation Garage Delivery Lead at the UK Department of Work and Pension. Lianne, good to see you today. Thanks for joining us here on "the CUBE". >> Hi, thanks for having me. >> And also with this us is Amar Narayan, who is a Manager Director at Accenture the AWS Business Group for the Lead in Health and Public Sector, also UK and Ireland. And Amar, I think, you and Lianne, are in the same location, Newcastle, I believe in the UK, is that right? >> Yeah, absolutely. Yep, yeah, we're, here in the northeast of UK. >> Well, thank you for being with us. I appreciate the time. Lianne, let's talk about what you do, the Department of Work and Pension, the famous DWP in England. You have influence or certainly touchpoints with a huge amount of the British population. In what respects, what are you doing for the working class in England and what does technology have to do with all that? >> Sure, so for the Department for Work and Pensions I think the pensions bit is fairly self explanatory so anybody who is over state pension age within the UK. for the work part of that we also deal with people of working age. So, these are people who are either in employment and need additional help through various benefits we offer in the UK. Those people who are out of work. And we also deal with health related benefits as well. And we are currently serving over 20 million claimants every year at this moment in time. So, we're aware of a huge part of the UK government. >> All right, so say that number again. How many? >> 20 million claimants every year. >> Million with an M, right? >> Yeah. >> So, and that's individuals. And so how many transactions, if you will, how many do you think you process in a month? How, much traffic basically, are you seeing? >> An extraordinary amount? I'm not even, I don't think I even know that number. (Lianne laughing) >> Mind blowing, right? So, it's- >> A huge, huge amount. >> Mind blowing. >> Yeah, so, basically the we kind of keep the country going. So, you know, if the department for Work and Pensions kind of didn't exist anymore then actually it would cause an infinite number of problems in society. We, kind of help and support the people who need that. And, yeah, so we play a really vital role in kind of you know, social care and kind of public service. >> So, what was your journey to Accenture then? What, eventually led you to them? What problem were you having and how have you collaborated to solve that? >> So, in terms of how we work with Accenture. So, we had in around 2017 DWP was looking at a projected number of transactions growing by about 210 million which was, you know, an extraordinary amount. And, you know, I think as we've kind of covered everything that we do is on a massive scale. So, we as DWP as an organization we had absolutely no idea how we were going to be able to handle such a massive increase in the transactions. And actually, you know, after kind of various kind of paths and ideas of how we were going to do that, automation, was actually the answer. But the problem that we have with that is that we have, like many governments around the world, we have really older legacy systems. So, each of these benefits that we deal with are on legacy systems. So, whatever we were going to develop had to, you know, connect to all of these, it had to ingest and then process all of these pieces of data some of which, you know, given the fact that a lot of these systems have a lot of manual input you have data issues there that you have to solve and whatever we did, you know, as we've talked about in terms of volumes has to scale instantly as well. So, it has to be able to scale up and down to meet demand and, you know, and that down scaling is also equally as important. So yeah, you've got to be able to scale up to meet the volumes but also you've got to be able to downscale when when it's not needed. But we had nothing that was like that kind of helped us to meet that demand. So, we built our own automation platform, The Intelligent Automation Garage and we did that with Accenture. >> So Amar, I'd like you to chime in here then. So, you're looking at this client who has this massive footprint and obviously vital services, right? So, that's paramount that you have to keep that in mind and the legacy systems that Lianne was just talking about. So, now you're trying to get 'em in the next gen but also respecting that they have a serious investment already in a lot of technology. How do you approach that kind of problem solving, those dynamics and how in this case did you get them to automation as the solution? >> Sure, so I think I think one of the interesting things, yeah as Lianne has sort of described it, right? It's effectively like, you know the department has to have be running all of the time, right? They can't, you know, they can't effectively stop and then do a bunch of IT transformation, you know it's effectively like, you know, changing the wheels of a jumbo jet whilst it's taking off, right? And you've got to do all of that all in one go. But what I think we really, really liked about the situation that we were in and the client relationship we had was that we knew we had to it wasn't just a technology play, we couldn't just go, "All right, let's just put some new technology in." What we also needed to do was really sort of create a culture, an innovation culture, and go, "Well how do we think about the problems that we currently have and how do we think about solving them differently and in collaboration, right?" So, not just the, "Let's just outsource a bunch of technology for to, you know, to Accenture and build a bunch of stuff." So, we very carefully thought about, well actually, the unique situation that they're in the demands that the citizens have on the services that the department provide. And as Lianne mentioned, that technology didn't exist. So, we fundamentally looked at this in a different way. So, we worked really closely with the department. We said, Look, actually what we ultimately need is the equivalent of a virtual workforce. Something where if you already, you know all of a sudden had a hundred thousand pension claims that needed to be processed in a week that you could click your fingers and, you know in a physical world you'd have another building all of your kits, a whole bunch of trained staff that would be able to process that work. And if in the following week you didn't need that you no longer needed that building that stuff or the machinery. And we wanted to replicate that in the virtual world. So, we started designing a platform we utilized and focused on using AWS because it had the scalability. And we thought about, how were we going to connect something as new as AWS to all of these legacy systems. How are we going to make that work in the modern world? How are we going to integrate it? How we going to make sure it's secure? And frankly, we're really honest with the client we said, "Look, this hasn't been done before. Like, nowhere in Accenture has done it. No one's done it in the industry. We've got some smart people, I think we can do it." And, we've prototyped and we've built and we were able to prove that we can do that. And that in itself just created an environment of solving tricky problems and being innovative but most importantly not doing sort of proof of concepts that didn't go anywhere but building something that actually scaled. And I think that was really the real the start of what was has been the Garage. >> So, And Lianne, you mentioned this and you just referred to it Amar, about The Garage, right? The Intelligent Automation Garage. What exactly is it? I mean, we talked about it, what the needs are all this and that, but Lianne, I'll let you jump in first and Amar, certainly compliment her remarks, but what is the IAG, what's the... >> So, you know, I think exactly what kind of Amar, has said from a from a kind of a development point of view I think it started off, you know, really, really small. And the idea is that this is DWP, intelligent automation center of excellence. So, you know, it's aims are that, you know, it makes sure that it scopes out kind of the problems that DWP are are facing properly. So, we really understand what the crux of the problem is. In large organizations It's very easy, I think to think you understand what the problem is where actually, you know, it is really about kind of delving into what that is. And actually we have a dedicated design team that really kind of get under the bonnet of what these issues really are. It then kind of architects what the solutions need to look like using as Amar said, all the exciting new technology that we kind of have available to us. That kind of sensible solution as to what that should look like. We then build that sensible solution and we then, you know as part of that, we make sure that it scales to demand. So, something that might start out with, I dunno, you know a few hundred claimants or kind of cases going through it can quite often, you know, once that's that's been successful scale really, really quickly because as you know, we have 20 million claimants that come through us every year. So, these types of things can grow and expand but also a really key function of what we do is that we have a fully supported in-house service as well. So, all of those automations that we build are then maintained and you know, so any changes that kind of needed to be need to be made to them, we have all that and we have that control and we have our kind of arms wrapped around all of those. But also what that allows us to do is it allows us to be very kind of self-sufficient in making sure that we are as sufficient, sorry, as efficient as possible. And what I mean by that is looking at, you know as new technologies come around and they can allow us to do things more effectively. So, it allows us to kind of almost do that that kind of continuous improvement ourselves. So, that's a huge part of what we do as well. And you know, I think from a size point of view I said this started off really small as in the idea was this was a kind of center of excellence but actually as automation, I think as Amar alluded to is kind of really started to embed in DWP culture what we've started to kind of see is the a massive expansion in the types of of work that people want us to do and the volume of work that we are doing. So, I think we're currently running at around around a hundred people at the moment and I think, you know we started off with a scrum, a couple of scrum teams under Amar, so yeah, it's really grown. But you know, I think this is here to stay within DWP. >> Yeah, well when we talk about automation, you know virtual and robotics and all this I like to kind of keep the human element in mind here too. And Amar, maybe you can touch on that in certain terms of the human factors in this equation. 'Cause people think about, you know, robots it means different things to different people. In your mind, how does automation intersect with the human element here and in terms of the kinds of things Lianne wants to do down the road, you know, is a road for people basically? >> Oh yeah, absolutely. I think fundamentally what the department does is support people and therefore the solutions that we designed and built had to factor that in mind right? We were trying to best support and provide the best service we possibly can. And not only do we need to support the citizens that it supports. The department itself is a big organization, right? We're up to, we're talking between sort of 70 and 80,000 employees. So, how do we embed automation but also make the lives of the, of the DWP agents better as well? And that's what we thought about. So we said, "Well look, we think we can design solutions that do both." So, a lot of our automations go through a design process and we work closely with our operations team and we go, well actually, you know in processing and benefit, there are some aspects of that processing that benefit that are copy and paste, right? It doesn't require much thought around it, but it just requires capturing data and there's elements of that solution or that process that requires actual thought and understanding and really empathy around going, "Well how do I best support this citizen?" And what we tended to do is we took all of the things that were sort of laborious and took a lot of time and would slow down the overall process and we automated those and then we really focused on making sure that the elements that required the human, the human input was made as user friendly and centric as we possibly could. So, if there's a really complex case that needs to be processed, we were able to present the information in a really digestible and understandable way for the agents so that they could make a informed and sensible decision based around a citizen. And what that enabled us to do is essentially meet the demands of the volumes and the peaks that came in but also maintain the quality and if not improve, you know the accuracy of the claims processing that we had. >> So, how do you know, and maybe Lianne, you can address this. How do you know that it's successful on both sides of that equation? And, 'cause Amar raised a very good point. You have 70 to 80,000 employees that you're trying to make their work life much more efficient, much simpler and hopefully make them better at their jobs at the end of the day. But you're also taking care of 20 million clients on the, your side too. So, how do you, what's your measurement for success and what kind of like raw feedback do you get that says, "Okay, this has worked for both of our client bases, both our citizens and our employees?" >> Yeah, so we can look at this both from a a quantitative and a qualitative point of view as well. So, I think from a let take the kind figures first. So we are really hot on making sure that whatever automations we put in place we are there to measure how that automation is working what it's kind of doing and the impact that it's having from an operational point of view. So I think, you know, I think the proof of the fact that the Intelligent Automation Garage is working is that, you know, in the, in its lifetime, we've processed over 20 million items and cases so far. We have 65 scaled and transitioned automations and we've saved over 2 million operational hours. I was going to say that again that's 2 million operational hours. And what that allows us to do as an organization those 2 million hours have allowed us to rather than people as Amar, said, cutting and pasting and doing work that that is essentially very time consuming and repetitive. That 2 million hours we've been able to use on actual decision making. So, the stuff that you need as sentient human being to make judgment calls on and you know and kind of make those decisions that's what it's allowed us as an organization to do. And then I think from a quality point of view I think the feedback that we have from our operational teams is, you know is equally as as great. So, we have that kind of feedback from, you know all the way up from to the director level about, you know how it's kind of like I said that freeing up that time but actually making the operational, you know they don't have an easy job and it's making that an awful lot easier on a day to day basis. It has a real day to day impact. But also, you know, there are other things that kind of the knock on effects in terms of accuracy. So for example, robot will do is exactly as it's told it doesn't make any mistakes, it doesn't have sick days, you know, it does what it says on the tin and actually that kind of impact. So, it's not necessarily, you know, counting your numbers it's the fact that then doesn't generate a call from a customer that kind of says, "Well you, I think you've got this wrong." So, it's all that kind of, these kind of ripple effects that go out. I think is how we measure the fact that A, the garage is working and b, it's delivering the value that we needed to deliver. >> Robots, probably ask better questions too so yeah... (Lianne laughing) So, real quick, just real quick before you head out. So, the big challenge next, eureka, this works, right? Amar, you put together this fantastic system it's in great practice at the DWP, now what do we do? So, it's just in 30 seconds, Amar, maybe if you can look at, be the headlights down the road here for DWP and say, "This is where I think we can jump to next." >> Yeah, so I think, what we've been able to prove as I say is that is scaled innovation and having the return and the value that it creates is here to stay, right? So, I think the next things for us are a continuous expand the stuff that we're doing. Keeping hold of that culture, right? That culture of constantly solving difficult problems and being able to innovate and scale them. So, we are now doing a lot more automations across the department, you know, across different benefits across the digital agenda. I think we're also now becoming almost a bit of the fabric of enabling some of the digital transformation that big organizations look at, right? So moving to a world where you can have a venture driven architectures and being able to sort of scale that. I also think the natural sort of expansion of the team and the type of work that we're going to do is probably also going to expand into sort of the analytics side of it and understanding and seeing how we can take the data from the cases that we're processing to overall have a smoother journey across for our citizens. But it's looking, you know, the future's looking bright. I think we've got a number of different backlogs of items to work on. >> Well, you've got a great story to tell and thank you for sharing it with us here on "the CUBE", talking about DWP, the Department of Work and Pensions in the UK and the great work that Accenture's doing to make 20 million lives plus, a lot simpler for our friends in England. You've been watching ""the CUBE"" the AWS Executive Summit sponsored by Accenture. (bright upbeat music)

The Cube presents UI Path Forward five. Brought to you by UI Path. >>Hi, everybody went back live at the Venetian, formerly the Sands Convention Center. Dave Ante with David Nicholson. UI. Paths forward five. This is the fourth forward conference that the Cube has done. So we've seen the ascendancy of UI path, the growth customers. UiPath is one of the first companies to actually come back Post Covid. Last year, 2021 at the Bellagio. They took a chance and it actually worked out great at a couple thousand people there. Lots of customers. We're here with Lauren Joyce, who's the global automation lead at Whirlpool. She's joined by Regener Facade rp, who is the global automation lead at Accenture. Good to see you again. Lauren. Welcome to the Cube first timer. Very much, >>Yes, thank >>You. So you're relatively new to automation, but you, as we were talking, you're a process with talk about the center of excellence that you're building out. What's the importance of that to Whirlpool? >>Absolutely. So we are first looking at automation from our finance organization and they were coming to us with, Hey, here are 12 things we wanna automate. And really what we are finding is that not all of these things were suitable for automation. So we've started on the COE journey of, well, how do we make sure that we're getting the most ROI for our business? Starting with discovery, making sure that what we're automating it makes sense, it's the right process versus just an upgrade or, or retooling set. So for us, especially being a global company, making sure that we had that governance in place, that mindset and what should be automated and when really made sense and helped us on our journey pursuing. >>And, and, and I presume that's where Accenture comes in. I mean, rp, you got deep industry expertise, you've got automation expertise. What role do you play in that prioritization exercise? >>So the, the way we approach any automation implementation is similar to what we did here in our pool. First step is, you know, I call it as knowing where you are in the automation journey. Like what always is, if you don't know where you are on a map, a map won't help you. So baselining the current automation maturity and the current journey where they are. And once you do that, you identify you are not star and prioritization and the goals that are required and then you build a plan. And exactly how we approach in establishing a center of excellence that drives the automation with rigor, knowing where you are and where you want to get to, >>What's the team look like in a, in a, who's on the bus, You know, who's who's, who's in in the circle if you will. How do you com you know, build, you've written about this, it's like a sports team. You put it together, you need be a quarterback, you need a lineman, you need, you know, wide receivers who's on the center of excellence team. >>So the way you always build the center of excellence is making sure that your business partners and the senior leadership team is committed to the entire automation journey. That's the key ingredient for success. Then you build, one of the critical aspect is the talent, the quarterback, you said the talent. In today's world, automation talent is just not about knowing, you know, RPA techniques or you know, process optimization, but it is an end to end technology stack starting from cloud to data to analytics and entire platform capabilities of automation that combined and coupled with change management and how do you drive an enterprise chain management is very, very critical in terms of implementing automation. >>Absolutely. Lauren, I'm curious, did, did Accenture bring UI path to Whirlpool or did you bring, or did you bring Accenture in and UI path in together? How, how did that interaction? >>Yes. So we brought Accenture in and they really helped us along with that journey and they brought UI path to us. Our European business was actually using Blue Prism and that's when we said no, we wanna standardize specifically on UI path and make sure from a global standpoint we're using the same tooling. And that really helped that as we were building our team, we leaned on their expertise and then even we're retooling people within our corporation of, hey, we took our SAP lead, our GCP lead to be our technical architect and and people that could help speak the language and translate from process and explain that doesn't have to be a large project and explain what automation is to help drive return investment for sure. >>Now you're early in, but have you seen results, you know so far? Can you talk about that, quantify it in any way or? >>Absolutely. So we started our journey December of 2020. We've automated about 60 or so bots, but really everything that we've done is based on hours saved. So we're at about 60,000 hours automated and with some of our biggest, like our big box stores and our KitchenAid small appliances, we've even had hard dollar savings that we had a bot that went live about in 60 days. We had a $3 million return and take took out 3000 hours of human interaction. That was great for us. >>So the world's kind of a mess right now. You got supply chain issues, you got inflation, you got a recession, you got the United States. Anyway, you got the Fed trying to figure out, oh there's sling shoting, you know, some people are, you know, really hurting stock market is starting to show that there's a lot of confusion out there. The world is changed quite a bit obviously the last few years. How do you guys see it? What role has, I wonder if both of you could answer, what role has automation played in helping like, for instance, Whirlpool with maybe supply chain problems or maybe bigger forecasting and, and what are you seeing across organizations? But Lauren if you could start. >>Absolutely. So for us being able to show improvement in a six to eight week development cycle and instead of saying here's a heavy dollar investment or a new tooling that you gotta get people resources up to speed on, we can take where we are today, automate save hours where we're getting our employee engagement scores of I'm overworked, I have too much on my plate, how can you help me? And automation is there to support and that's really helped our business one take unnecessary work off their plate and show very quick value add to the business without having to have huge dollar investments in our, I'm you trying to save money. >>Are people, what are you seeing in terms of, so some of the problems that people I see as sign out here said, oh, in inflation at five to 7% go after productivity and make it in 20% gains. I mean, what are you seeing in the field? >>More than ever, More than ever, automation is more relevant now given the current economy environment that we are operating. Because automation always free up or optimizers the capacity that every enterprise has. Optimizing capacity is very important so that you can take your talented employees and the talented resources to do more strategic transformation program, which helps to sustain and stay and scale in your business. So I see that automation playing a significant role to impact business imperative. >>What are some of the common misconceptions? I mean we talk a lot about people's fear of automation. You know, I don't think that's necessarily a misconception. I think a lot of times people are fearful about automating though. Maybe they, they shouldn't be. We had Dentsu on today, DS like, you know, this giant global branding firm and they get a lot of young kids, they're like, No, bring it on. I don't want to do all this mundane stuff. But you know, a lot of folks are are are concerned, but, so that maybe is one misconception. Are there others, Lauren, that you found that you can share? >>I think we were lucky that we didn't necessarily have that fear of being replaced by automation. I think our change management plan really helped drive that. We included some fun things of any time a bot went live you got almost like a birth certificate of here's the process we save for you, here's how it's grown over six, six months, 12 months, 18 months. But I'm not sure if we had any other major gaps like that or or pitfalls >>Or, or p anything that, >>So my philosophy is automation is human plus machine combination. You can't run just, you know, people can't think that, you know, if my task get automated, I lose the, I lose my my jobs. That's not how it works because you, you do need human expertise, competency skills to kind of argument what you do with automation. And most important thing when you do this change is that most of the enterprises do not believe, do not understand that you have to get even process, right? You don't want to, you know, have an inefficient process and put automation on the top of it. Then you just made your inefficiency run more faster. So you need to kind of make sure that you address inefficiency, optimize your process, then infuse automation, then have human plus machine capability to strengthen your automation. >>Is it really that easy? Sounds easy, right? It, >>So from an, from an Accenture perspective, if you're, if you're looking at the market as a whole or looking at industry verticals, what's the difference between an organization that is leveraging automation and an organization that is not leveraging organ leveraging automation? Is there, is there sort of a range of percentage of efficiency that you can put on that? What does it mean for their bottom line? >>Essent, you must have data on this. Yeah, I mean what, >>Yeah, >>Today, today's world in the technology world, every organization understands the importance of automation that's given. That's a table stake. Now, where an organization is in the journey differs some of the enterprises maybe at the beginning of the maturity spectrum. In my book I talk about automation maturity framework wherein there are the initial stages of automation. Some of them are intelligent automation at the end of the spectrum where they're using data cloud and AI to drive the automation journey. But in every enterprise, the key success of automation depends upon whether you do automation and enterprisewide not in a silo in the organization, but if you do enterprise wide apply across, you get a lot more benefits, lot more efficiency to drive. >>Does does automation being more strategic or key? Does it, does it in a way make investments in automation more, more scrutinized or more circumspect? I, I would, I would use the term discretionary. We heard Bobby Patrick today say this is not discretionary, it's strategic to me. If it's strategic it might be a mandate but it's might be something I can kick down the road. What are you seeing there in the field just in terms of overall demand and sentiment? >>Automation today, as I said, is a table stake. When it becomes an integrated DNA of enterprise, it is always, you know, whether you want to call one pillar of strategy, key DNA of your strategic roadmap you are in investments have to be directly proportional to what you want to accomplish as your business KPIs to thrive and deliver your business with. Otherwise, if you do it as like a one off thing, you know you won't get the benefit. Yeah. >>Or from your standpoint, where do you want to take the automation initiative inside a whirlpool? How are you thinking about scaling it? What have you learned that you can apply to driving scale? >>So we put some strict governance in place who weren't just automating everything under the sun cuz >>Wild west >>Yeah, I can't support that. Right? So we made sure that everything had at least less than a one year invest return on investment and 500 hours worth of automation for us to even consider it as part of our coe. So because of that, we do have some automations that would make sense, but that's why we're looking at a citizen development program or low code, no code. What other types of options are there to make sure that it does become a part of our culture and dna that you can automate those even small parts of your workflow to, to make your day better. >>When, when you're looking at those workflows, do you, are you, are you literally looking over someone's shoulder with a stopwatch and measuring, Measuring how time >>And motion studies? No >>Question. Yeah. I mean is it time and motion studies? I mean, is that sort of the entry level data that that you use or is it more, or is it more automated than that? >>I would say it's a little more automated than that, but we do sit down and we ask our business process, show me what this process looks like to you. And then from that we can take some task mining and look at, okay, how long did it take you to do this? How often are you doing it? And then based on how long the automation would take, see how many hours are saved and how many people are doing that same task on a monthly, daily, weekly basis. >>Great. All right guys, thanks so much for coming in the cube and sharing your story. A whirlpool and always love to have Accenture on. You guys got such a massive observation space, global depth of industry. So thank you very much both. Thank you. Thank you. You're very welcome. All right, keep it right there. Dave Nicholson and Dave Ante will be back right to the short break, you watching the cubes coverage of UI path forward. Five live from Las Vegas.

(upbeat music) >> Hey everyone. Welcome back to theCUBE's coverage of Coupa Inspire 2022. We are in Las Vegas at the beautiful Cosmopolitan hotel. I'm your host, Lisa Martin. Brian McKillips joins me next, a managing director at Accenture. Brian, it's great to have you on the program. >> Thanks for having me, I'm glad to be here. >> So you have an interesting, you lead a lot of stuff at Accenture and I want to read this off, so I get it right. You lead the intelligent platform services strategy and the industry and functions platform group. Talk to me about those responsibilities. >> Yeah, so the intelligent platform services is the place in the business where we have kind of our large software partners, SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, Workday, Salesforce and Adobe. And we kind of think of ourselves as kind of the engine that powers industry and functional solutions, right? And the way Accenture's gone to market over the last couple of years has been kind of bringing together our breadth of experience all the way from strategy, all the way through operations and these big technology transformations are at the core of that. So that's what we do in intelligent platform services. And we recently launched this what we call the industry and functions platforms group because we realized there's a lot of strategic partners that are critical for us to be have a strong practice around, COUPA being one of them, you know in the supply chain and sourcing and procurement space so that we could create a home to be able to deliver these solutions globally and at scale. So I lead both kind of the strategy across all of IPS and then the new industry and functions platform group. >> Got it. All right. So you're here to talk to me about composable technology. First of all, define that for the audience so they understand what you're talking about. >> Yeah, you bet. So, you know, at Accenture, we're talking a lot about this is the age of compressed transformation, meaning, you know, change is only going to speed up and the need to change and so our clients are really struggling with not only kind of moving fast but that pressure around having to change as dynamics around the world change. So in the age of compressed transformation, we were really talking about how our clients should be kind of reorienting the way they think about their tech stack. And because, you know, historically a lot of us grew up in kind of monolithic implementations with, you know one software provider. But today it's really about composing technology to create new industry, new ways to solve industry problems, functional processes, customer experiences, right? And so composable technology we think about it in three parts. One is a cloud foundation that is, you know, the hyperscalers are a critical part of that. Secondly, our digital core and these are the kind of the historic software packages at the center of a lot of the industry and functional business processes. So you think about SAP and Oracle and Salesforce and things like that. But then around that digital core you have composable elements to be able to plug in. And that could be things like other software packages but it's also kind of industry IP or you know, edge devices, you know think IOT, think smart appliances, think and when you put, pull all those things together you need to be able to not only configure it once but configure and reconfigure as the dynamics of the marketplace change. >> So composable technology isn't necessarily new but has the pandemic been an accelerator of some of the things that you're seeing now in terms of why it's important, what's different about it now as being a foundation for competitive differentiation? >> Yeah, for sure. And it's, you know, I, anybody who's in technology say, you know, you tell them about this idea, they're like, well this isn't new, we've had service oriented architectures for 20 years. >> Right. >> You know, we've been talking about integrating things forever, but the you know, much like we all five to seven years ago we knew that we'd be using our phones to pay for pretty much everything but the tech hadn't caught up, right. Not every restaurant or store that you went to had the point of sale set up, right. So we all kind of knew that was coming. And the same thing has kind of happened around this idea of about composable technology and the three things that are new are one is that the cloud foundation is here, right. >> Yes. >> Where, you know, you now have not only kind of hyperscale high speed compute in at the core you actually have at the edge as well. And the same thing with high speed network, you know you have Starlink, you have 5G rolling out. So you have that cloud foundation that really wasn't there before. The second thing that's happening is the posture of a lot of the ecosystem, major ecosystem players has changed, right. And this started, you know when Satya Nadella took over Microsoft where Microsoft was very much a kind of a closed environment. >> Right. >> Where Satya under his leadership has really kind of changed the posture of being able to integrate into that. And we've seen that really pretty much across the entire landscape. And then lastly, it's become, you know, cheaper and, you know, quicker to be able to integrate with platforms like MuleSoft and others where there's kind of full scale integration platforms. So those are, those are the kind of the things that are new that allows for composable technology to be here in the real world. >> So it's something that's tangible, it's real organizations need to be on this bandwagon I imagine or they're going to be left behind. Gartner had some interesting stats that your team sent over and they were talking about these stats that were very compelling in terms of a seismic shift which always, you hear seismic living in California I think earthquakes, but something substantial. And they said, this seismic shift is going to happen by 2023. And I thought, hang on, that's less than a year away. >> Yeah. >> And they talked about by 2023, organizations that have adopted an intelligent composable approach will outpace competition 80% in the speed of new feature implementation. So if an organization hasn't started on that now is it too late? >> I would say not necessarily too late but they need to look for ways to change their disposition, right. And one of the ways that we've been helping clients do this is through pre-integrated solutions, right. So you know, in the past, the motion would be we would work with a client, they would work with our kind of strategists and consultants and say, what does the the future of supply chain look like for example. And if the client liked it, they would say, okay, I love it, what do I do next? Right. Then there would be another consulting engagement, another consulting engagement and then there would be a blueprint and architecture and at some point there was an implementation and a run. We've actually said we're investing heavily with our ecosystem partners to be able to pre-integrate solutions. So when that supply chain strategist says this is what the post COVID supply chain should look like and the client says, I love it what do I do next, that strategist can turn around and say, well, we've got a pre-integrated solution with SAP at the core sitting on a Microsoft Azure stack integrated with Coupa, wrapped with AI and machine learning and we can drop that and configure it for an environment. So that's how we're working with clients who are in that position that really need to kind of change their disposition is to bring these pre-integrated solutions and drop them in. >> Where are your conversations at the C- Suite level? Because this is, I hear many things in what you just said. Part of it is change management, which is very challenging. There's, people are very resistant to that. >> Brian: Yeah. >> One of the things that we've learned in the last two years is if it's going to come it's going to come but where are your conversations within that executive suite in terms of getting buy-in and going this is the direction we have to go in. >> Brian: Yeah. >> Because our business needs to be not just survive but thrive. >> Yeah. Yeah. These are, I mean, there are certainly of course in kind of traditional channels of tech whether it's, you know, the CIO or the CTO, but increasingly we're seeing this is a CEO discussion and, you know, our CEO Julie Sweet, is very, very market pacing and is having top to top conversations talking about compressed transformation, talking about composable technology because it's no longer just a, you know, a back office function as you know, right. I mean, this is really core to how companies you know, are, change their business models, make money, right. And it's a constant evolution. And that's why we talk about that kind of configuring and reconfiguring, it's not just coming in, implementing once, run it for five years and then when it's time to upgrade, we come back. >> No. >> We really want to be the partner with our clients to basically move in and, you know, across the patch whether it's specific industry processes, specific functional processes, specific customer experiences, we want to be the partner that is constantly tuning and configuring and reconfiguring and composing these solutions from across the ecosystem. >> And helping those businesses in any industry evolve as you talked about this compressed timeline, compressed transformation, such an interesting way of describing it but it's really true, it's what we've been living the last couple of years. >> Brian: Yeah. And so I want to get into Accenture's technology vision. You touched on this a little bit but there was some stats that your team provided that I thought were really, really interesting, a survey that Accenture did, 77% of executives, and we were just talking about the C-suite, state that their tech architecture is becoming critical to the overall success of the organization. So that awareness is there for sure en masse. Another thing that, stat that was interesting was 90% of business and IT execs agree that to be agile we always talk about agility, right, be resilient, organizations need to fast forward this digital transformation at the core. There's that compressed transformation. >> Brian: Yeah. >> Those are very high numbers. >> Brian: Yeah. >> In terms of where organizations say we see where we need to be. What's the vision at Accenture to help organizations get there fast? >> Yeah. Well, I think it's, you know, the thing that came to mind as you were talking is that we have, you know, major clients that have had this had in the, you know consumer packaged goods and apparel space that have had one way that they've done business is directly through retailers, you know, for pretty much their whole existence. Suddenly they need to shift to a direct to consumer model both in terms of marketing, in terms of commerce and that's not, you know, you don't just flip a switch in the back office and, you know, call IT and say hey, hey, can you change around a few things? It's actually shifting the entire core, it touches everything, it touches point of sale, it touches the customer experience, it touches supply chain, it touches employee experience even, right. >> Yeah. >> And so that's why I think it's so important for, you know technology leaders and business leaders to continue to kind of integrate themselves more tightly. >> Yes. >> To be able to make these business model transformations not just, you know, the tech that supports things. >> It's essential. >> Yeah. >> You know, we often in so many shows, Brian, we talk about alignment of business and technology, but it's not trivial. >> Yeah, yeah. >> It's absolutely fundamental to the success of every organization. And they've got to do so and as you said, I'm going to use your, your word, the compressed transformation. >> Yeah. >> A compressed timeframe. So talk to me about some customer examples where you really feel that Accenture and Coupa have helped this organization transform its supply chain to be able to be, use composable technology. >> Brian: Yeah. >> To be a leader in its industry. >> Yeah. Well, one example of that is a major industrial client that we have that has global operations across the world. And they're on a journey to kind of upgrade their digital core ERP that they've been on for a long time. And that's a multi-year journey. But at, you know, today they have needs for sourcing and procurement solutions in specific geographies around the world like Japan, for example. So what we've been able to do and it's a relatively simple example but quickly work with the client and Coupa to identify the right Coupa solution that's born in the cloud that has a great kind of user experience and implement that quickly as well as integrated it into the digital core, right. So they're not separate things. And it becomes part of that architecture, right. It just starts to kind of show the flexibility of when you have, when you come with a kind of composable technology point of view, the way we can help our clients do that. And in some other cases it's even more, you know, more cutting edge. So think about a utilities client, for example that has IOT sensors on their wires and when the, when that wire swings too far they say something's wrong. Automatically it goes back to the digital core cuts a ticket and finds the closest worker. >> Lisa: Okay. >> To then dispatch. The worker then can put on their hollow lens, for example and climb the pole and get directions on how to solve the problem right then and there, right? That's another example of you know, multiple systems, edge devices things coming together in order to create that. And it's only going to get faster, you know, with the metaverse. >> Lisa: Right. >> You know, with web 3.0 coming, with blockchain becoming more and more mainstream, companies need to be thinking about in this age of compressed transformation how to do that composable technology that you can figure and reconfigure. >> Do you think that we're in an age of compressed transformation or is that how it's going to be going forward given the global climate the last two years? >> Yeah. It's definitely going to be that way going forward over the next, you know, probably for the large part of the, the remainder of our career. I mean, we're, our CTO, Paul Daugherty, talks about us being an mega cycle, right? There's so many things changing. And even without these externalities of, you know, political issues and pandemics, you know, the introduction of AI and machine learning, a lot of these technologies I just mentioned, it's, the change is happening in every industry, in every, you know kind of area of the marketplace and in a way that's, you know, that's really exciting, right. And we get to help our clients be able to kind of solve those things not just once, but continually >> There's a tremendous amount of opportunity that's come from compressed transformation, right. A lot of opportunity, a lot of potential. What are some of the things that you're looking forward to say in the next year, as we talked about some of those business and lines of business and IT folks understand we've got to move in this direction. What excites you about the potential that you have to help these organizations really transform? >> Yeah, well, I think, I mean, the, we just came out with our new tech vision which is about the metaverse. And I think that the things that excite me are there's brand new ways like we've lived in a world where transactions take place in a very predictable way with local currencies through a single channel. And that was, that's been sort of fixed for a long time. The fundamentals of the economy or actually in the marketplace are starting to change in terms of how do we transact with things like cryptocurrencies, things like non fungible tokens, you know, all these things that we didn't, you know, they weren't, even the metaverse these were not main line words, even six you know, months ago, 12 months ago. >> Lisa: Right, right. >> Now these things, you know, every it seems like every month there's something new that is, you know, seismic to use your word that is shifting the fundamentals of the marketplace. And I think that's what's really exciting. I mean, that's where, I mean, it's probably one of the most exciting times to be in business, be in the marketplace. It certainly has a lot of challenges. >> Lisa: Yes. >> But, you know, I think we're really about using, you know, the promise of technology to unlock human ingenuity and this is a great time to be able to unlock that human ingenuity. >> And that's such a great alignment with Coupa. I was just in the keynote and there was an Accenture video, Julie Sweet was talking to some other folks about that. Great alignment in the partnership. Brian, thank you for joining me talking about composable technology, what's new, why and the potential that organizations and every business have to use it to unlock competitive advantages. >> Brian: Yeah. >> We appreciate your insights and your time. >> You bet. Pleasure to be here. >> All right. With Brian McKillips, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBEe from Coupa Inspire 2022. (upbeat music)

(soft instrumental music) >> Welcome back everyone, to theCUBE's coverage of AWS re:Invent 2021. I'm John Furrier, your host of theCUBE. We're here in person at a live physical event with real people. Of course, it's a hybrid event. Great stuff online. Check it out on the Amazon site, as well as theCUBE zone. We've got great guests, talking about the cloud vision for getting talent in to the marketplace, in being productive and for society Accenture always great content. Denise Reese, Managing Director of the South Market Unit Lead at Accenture, AABG, which stands for "Accenture Area Business Group" and Gina Gina Fratarcangeli who is also the managing director of Midwest sales leader. Ladies, thanks for coming, I appreciate you coming on and talking about the vision of talent. >> I guess >> Thanks for having us. >> Yes, absolutely. It's a pleasure to be here. >> So, Amazon's got this dangerous goal, to train 29 million people. Maureen Lonergan came on yesterday, who I've known for a long time, doing a great job. It's hard to get the talent in. First of all, it sounds harder than it really is, that's my opinion. You know, you get some training certifications and you're up and running. So, talent's a big thing. What do you guys do? Give us the overview. >> Sure. Well, we're having a lot of activity at Accenture trying to get talent in. Across the entire country we're spending a tremendous amount of effort to do that. A couple of critical things we're doing in the Midwest is bringing in and searching for different talent streams that we haven't typically done in the past. For instance, one thing that we're doing is, we set up an apprentice program where we're reaching out into the market to find diverse talent, who aren't coming through the critical normal college path and bringing folks in like that. And we've got 1200 people that we've brought in that way, just in the Midwest. Which has been a phenomenal new talent stream for us. And supporting our inclusion and diversity. One of the other exciting things is what we call "The Mom Project", where we're intentionally working with an organization called the Mom Project, to bring women back into the workplace who may have left while they were taking care of their families and helping them get certified in all the new cloud technology and getting back to work. >> I love how you guys are going after this whole places that not everyone's looking at, because what I love about Cloud is that, it's a level up kind of opportunity where you don't really have to have that pedigree, or that big-big school. Of course, I went to a different school. So, I have a little chip on my shoulder. I didn't go to MIT, wasn't North-east but still good school. But, I mean, you could really level up from anywhere. >> Gina: That's right. >> And the opportunities with Cloud are so great. This is like a huge thing. No I'm surprised no one knows about it. >> Absolutely. I would add to that. So, we've in the South, in Georgia in particular. We've just launched an initiative with the technical college system of Georgia and AWS. So, it's a public-private partnership, where we're actually helping to set the curriculum for those students that are going through programs, through the technical colleges. It's one of the largest parts of the university system of Georgia. And, we're actually helping to frame the curriculum. And, giving folks what they need, to your point. It is an opportunity to level up. It's a great way to get talent in non-traditional spaces. It helps us to achieve our inclusion and diversity roles or goals, rather. But, then it also allows us to really continue to fill that pipeline with folks that we may not have had access to otherwise. >> Is there a best practice that you see developing in the acquisition of talent? Or enticing people to come in? Because that's just economics you know, Maureen was telling me that it was this person she was unemployed, and she got certified and she's making six figures. >> Both: Yeah. >> She's like oh my God, this is great. So, that's the Cloud growth. Is there a way to entice people? Is there a pattern? Is it more economic? Is it more, hey, be part of something. What's the data showing? >> There's definitely a war for talent out there. And so in this space we continuously hear from our clients that they can't hire enough people. So in the past, in the technology space, a lot of clients were hiring their own teams and here they just can't get the skills fast enough. So we're spending a tremendous amount of time being proactive. We started a women in Cloud organization where we're proactively reaching out to the community to bring women in, let them know that we will help them get those certifications and partnering with organizations like Women in Cloud, which is a global organization to create new funnels of talent. >> I think the women angle is great. The mom network coming out of the work for back into the workforce, because things change. Like we were talking about how Amazon just changed over the past five years now that this architectural approach is changing. So that's cool. Also we were involved in the women in data science, out of Stanford University, they have that great symposium. This is power technical women. >> Yes >> And it's got a global following. So the women networks that are developing are phenomenal. So that's not just an Accenture thing, right? That's outside of Accenture. >> I think it's a combination because I think we do a really good job inside of Accenture to create opportunities for women of various ethnicities lived experiences to be able to come together to network internally, but then also to pour some of that talent that they have into the communities where we live and we all do business as well. So I think I'm seeing definitely a two-pronged approach there. >> Let me ask you a question, I don't mean to put you on the spot, but I kind of will, Accenture's known as a pretty great firm. So working at Accenture is kind of a big deal. Does that scare people? Because if you could work at a Accenture I mean, that's good pedigree right there. So like, when you're trying to get people coming into the cloud, do they get the Accenture mojo or does it work for them? And can you share your experiences on that? >> I've been here five years and it's been a phenomenal ride for me. I've really enjoyed the fact having a female CEO, I think, and having a CEO who is so committed to diversity on all aspects, right? Her commitment is 50% diversity parody by 2025 at every level of our organization. And that doesn't happen without really intentional efforts at the entry-level and everywhere through the process to ensure that women are not only promoted, but really given the support network among all of our leaders and mentorship to be successful. And it's not just words, it's something that we're really spending a lot of time doing with intention. And that word is out in the space now, as women come in, they're loving it and they're recruiting their other women into the organization and diverse groups as well as what I'm seeing. >> And so I actually just started at Accenture in March. So I've been around eight months. I actually joined from AWS, interestingly enough. And I can tell you from my own experience, the intentionality that Gina spoke to you is it's evident at all levels. I feel like the way that I was courted to the firm was nothing short of amazing. That's another story for another day, but I feel like my being where I am, being hired in as a managing director, as an experienced hire, I think my presence is a testament to the focus that Accenture has on inclusion diversity and the equity component as well. And then also in Atlanta, we are exceptionally fortunate. We have close to 30 black and Latin X managing directors and senior managing directors out of the Atlanta office. So what we're doing there is pretty magical and it's something that I've never experienced in my 25 years. >> It's contagious I hope, the magic is contagious. >> Yeah. >> Yes, absolutely. >> And it's exciting because we're known as a management consulting business, right? So our product is the people >> That's right. >> And so there is intention from day one as to what you want from your career and setting your career plan. So everyone is given those career counselors and the expectation that someone is thinking about your business and your personal business, and what is your role today and what should your role be in two years, and what skills do you need to get there? Which is awesome, it's a lot of fun. >> It's also walking the talk too, right? I mean, Amazon here, they had a 50% women on stage. I don't know if you noticed on the keynote, they was two men and two women, 50%. Of course the United Airlines, it's got to be three. We got to get a 51%,, 'cause technically 51% So it should be three to one, but yeah, like, okay, that was cute notice but that's good. But this is real, I've been a big proponent of software development. Customers are women too that's 51%. So I think this whole representation thing has to be more real and more intentional. And so I want to ask you, how would you share the best practice of making that real from the essential playbook? What could people learn and what mistakes should they avoid? I think people who do want to try with it, but they don't know what to do. >> You know, I think get started, right. Do the work. I feel like since I started in technology, we've been having this conversation about diversity and inclusion and bringing more people into the space. And now it's time for us to just do that. And I feel like Accenture is doing that in spades. I think also again, I've been using this word. I was on a breakout panel yesterday talking about our partnership with AWS and intentionality keeps coming up. But I think also it helps to have a CEO who's creating diversity as an imperative at the most senior levels of the firm and folks are being incentivized as a result. So you've got to put the mechanisms in place to ensure that folks understand that this is not just lip service. >> That's a great point. It's not only just the people, but the mechanisms. And one of the things that I've been saying early on in the top of the interview was Cloud is an instant leveler there, because if you can be so capable so fast. So like when you start thinking about getting people in the market, producing talent, this notion of meritocracy isn't lip service, because if you have the capabilities and the people side lineup, then it truly can be like that. 'Cause your game does the talking, right. >> And we're doing it with intention at every level in the organization so much though, that every people leader, one of their metrics is the diversity. And as we look at the promotions, making sure that that parody is there, but every person who's managing people has diversity as a metric that they're being measured on. And so I think that's really critical as well as having the people who are being the advocates and being the allies and really asking the questions as the teams are getting put together. You know, my job is to review all the deals in the Midwest. And when the teams come forward, I say, "Great where are the women on the team? Who are we putting it?" We're all talking about the diversity. So when we're going to a client meeting, where are the women who are you're taking to that meeting? And if the answer is well, there's not one who's technical yet, the most senior, the most technical, well, great bring her on and use this as a training opportunity. We need to walk the walk and talk the talk and show that to our clients. >> I think that's really good. You guys are senior leaders, one can do that, demonstrate that, but also you're in the field for Accenture. You're in front of your customers. What are you seeing out there and what excites you about being in these industry? >> Yeah, I love the fact that there are so many more women in this space. I love that we're having so many women out there with intention. We've had six female CEOs do women in Cloud panel discussions with us and with our team. So you made the comment early about cloud moving so fast. That's the most exciting thing for me and the fact that it is moving at such a pace that no one client is going to be able to get the skills fast enough. They need companies like Accenture. They need companies like AWS to help them where we're leveraging all the knowledge from our own other clients and bringing that together so we can help them accelerate their development. What about you? >> Absolutely. Now I would echo that as we used to say at AWS plus one to that. But I'm really hopeful because what I'm seeing is the number of folks with my lived experience better at senior executive levels, not only within Accenture and AWS, but in our customers. And I think going back to the point that you were making earlier regarding Cloud being a level up and giving folks opportunity, folks have to be able to see a path, right? It's one thing to just get a certification and tick a box, that's great. But if you don't see a pathway to being able to utilize that in a way that allows you to move up and seeing where we are now, just as a firm, just really, really excites me that every time I get onto a call and I see another strong, amazing woman, I'm like, man, this is amazing. And it's something that... I think it's a phenomenon that I've started to see maybe within the last like five years or so. And probably even within the last two to three years, I've started to see that even more so, so that really excites me. >> Well, first of all, you guys are great. You're contagious, okay? Which is good, a good thing. I love how you brought the whole path thing because path finders was a big part of Adam's Leslie's keynote, and it must be really fun to see people taking the path that you guys are pioneering- >> We're ploughing, we're ploughing >> Yes we are. We're ploughing and you know what else we're doing? We're lifting, as we climb. That is important. I would say that, we don't have all of these amazing opportunities and blessings just to talk about what we have, but if you're not actually bringing somebody else along and giving those opportunities to folks, then it's all for not. >> You got people and the Cloud, to get them people, which is, we're humans and the mechanisms software to bring it together, magic. >> Absolutely >> Congratulations. Thanks for coming on theCUBE. >> Both: Thanks for having us. >> Okay this is theCUBE, I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE. You're watching theCUBE, the leader in global tech coverage from re:Invent 2021 AWS web services. Thanks for watching (soft instrumental music)

(upbeat music) >> Hey, welcome back everyone to theCUBE's coverage of AWS re:Invent 2021. I'm John Furrier, your host of theCUBE. We've got two sets on the show floor, it's a virtual event, we've got the hybrid stream going, check out all the content we're here for wall-to-wall coverage. It's all been about data cloud transformation, culture change, and making things happen. I got a great segment here with Accenture, Chris Copeland, CTO of Accenture's Federal Services, and Mark Kim, the CEO of Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, also known as the MSRB. Welcome to theCUBE. >> Thank you, John, it's a pleasure to be here. >> Thanks for coming, first of all, explain what the Municipal Rulemaking Board does, so people know what it is and we'll jump in. >> Sure, thank you, John, for the opportunity to have this conversation, the MSRB serves as the principal regulator of the $4 trillion Municipal Securities market. So Municipal Securities or muni-Bonds as there're most commonly known, finance the majority of this nation's infrastructure from the public schools that educate our kids to the hospitals that care for our sick. Muni-bonds even finance the airport that we flew into to get to this conference. But in addition to writing the rules that regulate this market, the MSRB also provides the technology infrastructure that supports this market. So, in addition to being a financial regulator, the MSRB is also a technology company and we saw the future of technology and cloud computing and that was our decision to embrace that future and to move the MSRB to the cloud. >> Correct, and obviously, Chris, this is critical infrastructure, you're talking about, legacy, has a lot of legacy as well. A lot of data, money's involved. I mean all the wrappings of transformation stories there. >> Yeah, and it's great. I mean, the MSRB and Mark in particular really had the right mindset of understanding that, we all talk about migrating to the cloud. That's really just the beginning. Like it's really about once you're in the cloud, the aperture that opens up the art of the possible and what you can really do. And the MSRB is like right on all of it, right? It's all about data. It's all about transformation, but I think the key for that transformational success that we've seen, is understanding that the organization needs to change too. And that we need to enable that organization to really be productive and deliver on that mission in a cloud first world. >> Well, Mark, I want to get into this 'cause this has been a big part of my reporting this past year during the pandemic and maybe the year earlier. I saw the public sector in particular really forced it to change. >> Yeah. >> Cultural shift instantly, they had no choice. It was a forcing function and there was the haves and have nots, the ones who have done the work, put their toe in the water, invested in some technology, knew about cloud and then ones that weren't, and they were thrown in the water. They had to figure out how to swim very quickly. So take us through the importance of that because we heard today and even in the keynote with Swami on stage from Amazon saying governance could be an enabler, not an inhibitor. So you're in this world of obviously muni-bonds, I'm sure there's a lot of compliance involved. So, take us through the journey, how you guys changed the culture? What was the outcome? Take us a quick highlight on the whole process. >> Absolutely, so, for the MSRB, the cloud migration was always about way more than just moving our applications from our servers to AWS's servers. This was an opportunity for the organization to put in place a cultural transformation. And that's the power of this opportunity for the MSRB. We were able to make a commitment to our people, which we did right at the outset, that we were going to bring all of our people with us on this journey to the cloud. This was a major investment in re-skilling and retraining our staff. We didn't have staff who had experienced migrating applications to the cloud. We didn't have software engineers who had prior experience working in cloud native environments. We trained them and we made that commitment to do that and to bring all of our people along. And that has enabled the MSRB to create a culture of innovation, of teamwork. It also allowed us to break down some silos within our organization. Not only within the IT organization, but between IT and business, it was a transformational opportunity. >> I mean, effecting change is hard, what was the learnings? When did you realize it's working? (John laughs) >> So having completed the migration itself, one of my fears was we've just literally spent millions of dollars investing in our staff, re-skilling and retraining them. We've just gone through a very technical, highly complex migration. These are people who are in high demand. Not to mention that AWS decided to put HQ2 right outside of Washington DC, announced plans to hire 10,000 people over the next 10 years. So I was worried on the other side of the migration that we would have a talent drain, and the best proof that I have that we've got our cultural transformation underway and going in the right direction is we didn't see that brain drain. We have staff that want to stay at the MSRB, that are excited about being able to continue to learn about new technologies, staff that are excited to be kind of on the cutting edge of financial regulation and being a part of building the future of the MSRB. >> Okay, there's a purpose there, I mean, I think this is, this highlights this whole conference here at re:Invent. I was just talking to someone off camera during lunch and like, it's an Amazon learning Conference as they say that their humble is learning, but it's also a thought leadership conference because they're introducing new stuff that's actually like, it gets the juices flowing and you're like, wait a minute, I can do more things. So, it's got that kind of conference, ted kind of vibe to it, plus it's real. >> I think that's one of the best benefits that we saw as part of this program that, and we talk a lot about how to infuse innovation into the fabric of your DNA and organization, and I don't think that personified itself anywhere that I've seen as well as at the MSRB. Mark was talking about people wanting to stay and work there. I'll even, I think he's understating it. People were excited about the process-- >> Yeah, they want to come to work everyday. >> There was competitions going on, on who was going to get certified. There was challenges about who's going to learn the most cloud and that desire to really continuously improve and bring those new innovations was unparalleled that I've seen. What Mark and the MSRB don't have the luxury of just keeping pace with those that they regulate. They've got to stay ahead. >> Yeah. >> And if you're going to stay ahead, you've got to have that innovative culture and you've got to take change as something that isn't this big mountain to climb, but something that's actually exciting to do every day. And I think it really, really came out in the program here. >> That's one of the things I think it's one of the smartest moves you can make and I think you've made it, by getting the people on the right wave of technology is a retention bonus. >> Absolutely. >> It's not just keeping them happy 'cause if you're working on cool stuff, it's fun. >> Right. >> But if you get them on the right way where they're constantly learning, and then they've to be a part of something. >> Yeah. >> This cloud migration, I think that's a real retention thing. Do you agree, you've seen the same thing? >> Yeah, absolutely. Its such a motivator to know that our staff is front and center leading the charge in transforming the MSRB. Not only culturally but also digitally. >> Yeah. >> And bringing us into the future. >> Okay, so I got to put you on the spot because I'm want to put my evil genius hat on for a second. Okay, I want to make money, I'm a FinTech arbitrager, I want to get in and work the muni-bond data angle, obviously worry about, you've got a lot of oversight, governance, regulation. Can you move fast enough to protect the data to make sure things are stable? Take us through that because there's a lot of money involved talking about like a serious part of our economy and a financial system. >> Yeah. >> It's critical infrastructure. >> Yeah. >> So, you got to also have that balance of innovation and compliance and governance without getting in the way. >> Absolutely. >> Take us through how you handle that. >> Absolutely, as a financial regulator that provides the market with its technology infrastructure, failure is not an option nor is falling behind the times. We have to evolve with our evolving market. And the pace of change is moving faster and faster. If you look at today, what's different about the MSRB being in the cloud than route being on-prem in our data centers, for our stakeholders, we don't have customers as a financial regulatory we have stakeholders, the entities that we regulate and the entities that we protect, our stakeholders will see systems that are more available. In the first 12 months of operations in the cloud, we achieved over 99.98% system availability. Performance has improved in our own internal benchmark tests, our systems are running 30% faster than they were and then finally our systems are more secure. This is a hard one to quantify or to explain or to kind of deliver to customers, but I-- >> There's no ROI conversation when you've been hacked. >> Exactly, I am-- >> Its only a disaster. >> But I am confident that our systems are more secure today in the cloud, than they were on-prem in our data centers. >> Yeah, Chris, this is a huge thing. I'm not going to rant a little bit, I'll do a side rant, but everyone who watches theCUBE knows I'm kind of a digital hawk. I truly believe that the red line needs to be changed because we are being attacked at a cyber level and almost like the, I get to see people being excited to work there because it's almost like the military, you got to protect. There's so much downsized, not so much justification of ROI. This is critical infrastructure, financial systems and databases. And there's no malice, there's no government forces to protect you. >> I mean, Mark said it well, failure isn't an option, right? And I think what we're seeing and why everyone is really rapidly moving to the cloud is you cannot get that level of cybersecurity, you cannot get that real time information access, and then run your models to look for trends of where the threats are maybe coming from, and proactively address those threats. You can't do that in a legacy infrastructure model on-prem, you've got to embrace the power of the cloud and the services that the AWS cloud provides to be able to truly try to stay ahead. I mean, you have to bring that innovation every day in your lunch bag and say, how are we going to use these tools that only the cloud affords us to bring security to the forefront? >> And John, can I add on that point? 'Cause I think it's an important one around security. In the legacy environment, in our data centers, the MSRB was handling security by ourselves, and I think one of the biggest lessons learned for us is pick your partners carefully. >> Yes. >> We chose AWS and we chose Accenture Federal Services and we've now tripled our investments in security, both what Amazon is investing in their infrastructure, we've also have AFS providing managed security services for the MSRB in addition to our own security team. So we've literally tripled our security. >> It's interesting and I think that's one of the reasons why you mentioned the retention thing and why people are happy is, it attracts a certain kind of individual to work there. It's the elite tech athlete, we call them, because they like, want the action, the young kids there, they want the tech, they don't want to be boring. So, what better wave to ride when you know there's a lot to protect, again, back to the cyber, this is huge cultural shift in the new generation coming in versus the old IT. The old IT was okay, we're operational, keep the lights on, add some servers, now it's like a lot more is at stake. >> Yeah. >> Okay, great, I know we don't have a lot of time left, but I do want to get the data question. I have to ask you-- >> Sure. >> You're a data company as well, you got to watch the data, what's the vision and data? How are you looking at the data with your team? >> So data is the future of the MSRB and we will remain a financial regulator and write the rules that regulate this market, that's our core mission and we will always do that. We will also always be a technology firm that provides the technology infrastructure for this market. But in the future what the cloud has enabled us to do is to become a data company. We serve as the central repository of market data for this $4 trillion market. And we now, thanks to almost infinite scalable computing power storage, we now have the ability to leverage cloud tools like artificial intelligence, machine learning, to actually get at an unlock insight from the vast amounts of market data that we have and deliver that to the industry that we regulate and serve. >> And you guys have so much headroom because Chris, with Graviton3-- >> Yep. >> And the Stack, you can actually write the apps built for the performance, for your needs. >> That's right. >> Yes. >> For the data needs, 'cause that's your advantage. >> That's right. >> Yeah, it's just incredible. I just find it like, I haven't seen anything like this since the shift from client server to inter networking back in the 90s where you saw a sea change of capabilities just completely change over, it's been pretty incredible. >> Yeah. >> Okay, final word. Just re:Invent, what do you guys think? >> This is my first business trip since the pandemic started and it's fantastic to be with people, to see people to do this in person instead of virtually, so thank you for this opportunity. >> I know, I felt so amazed. Chris, what about you, what's your take? >> It's wonderful to be here, it's great being back, back out in the world I guess. >> Yep >> Getting to meet with Mark, where we're not looking at a screen at each other, meeting with peers, but also just the collaboration and innovation you're going to get in an environment like this and the energy that it brings, you just can't match that. So it's been a great show so far and I'm looking forward to the rest of it. >> The phrase I hear a lot on theCUBE, also I say it a lot, a kid in the candy store 'cause there's so much coming out, just the capabilities, you're starting to see more ease of use, more infrastructure as code now, data as code, a lot of great stuff, all part of the cloud transformation. So great for coming on and sharing the story, Mark, I appreciate it. >> Thank you John. >> It's good to hear about your awesome program, Chris, thanks for coming on too. >> Yep, thanks for having us. >> Appreciate it, okay, Cube Coverage here in Las Vegas. I'm John Furrier, you're watching theCUBE, the leader in global tech coverage, thanks for watching. (upbeat music)

(upbeat music) >> Hello, everyone. Welcome back to theCUBE's coverage of AWS re:Invent! 2021. I'm John Furrier, your host for the theCUBE, a lot of great action here. A lot of great solutions. Great keynote. The future of cloud's going to be all about purpose-built software platforms, enabling more and more SaaS, faster performance with custom chips, all enabling great stuff. I have two great guests here. Who are going to talk about it from Accenture. We've got Karthik Narain, global lead of Accenture's Cloud First. Welcome to the program. Good to see you and Chris Wegmann, AABG Accenture Amazon Business Group. Technology leads senior manager. Thanks for coming on. >> Great to be here. >> I was commenting before we came on about Accenture's work you guys been doing with the clouds in my article, I posted before re:Invent!. Dave Vellante coined the term superclouds, which we kind of just put out there, but the idea that people can build really strong platforms that enable a new kind of Saas has been the big wave. Connect has been a great example. We heard on stage from Adam, the CEO. Chris, this has been something that's been a real change where it's not just lift and shift and refactor, it's build value in a platform and new SaaS capabilities. What's your reaction to that? >> Yeah, I would absolutely agree. We've seen this change over time. We've seen the lift and shift and modernize and it's definitely moved into the Superclouds. I like the term, but you know, we call them cloud continuums, which we'll talk a little bit about, it's about building these purpose-built solutions. I think if you look at the keynote today, you look at, everybody that was on stage. United and everyone talking about what they're building, their technology companies now, they're not just the business. >> You guys did some new research, coining new terms and Cloud First. What is this all about? What is this new wave you guys are talking about? >> Yeah, so John, you know, few years ago, when people talked about cloud, they generally meant public cloud. I think the definition of cloud is changing and expanding. And from now on, whenever people talk about cloud, it's actually a cloud continuum. It's a continuum of capability from public to Edge and everything in between all seamlessly connected by Cloud First networks, which means all the capabilities that customers used to get from one public cloud destination. They can actually access that across the continuum, whether that be in their own private data center, using the capability of cloud with AWS's Outpost and other capabilities. Or they could use the capability in their Edge location, whether it's their retail centers, their warehouse locations, manufacturing and so on and so forth. So organizations are using the power of cloud beyond one purpose and one destination, but more as an operating system going forward. >> Chris, what's your take on this redefinition of cloud what's your take on it? >> I think it's much needed. I think Andy kicked it off last year when he recognized the term hybrid. We all, who've has been around a while kind of chuckled because they finally said the word. But if you look at the keynote today, they just continued it. Adam picked it up and ran with it. If you look at all the services, Wavelength and all the different services, there's not a single customer that I have, that's just using EC2 or S3 right. They're using all these different services you saw today. You saw all the different services that United put up on the screen. That DISH put up on the screen. So yeah, it's how people and companies, if they're truly going to transform and truly use cloud to transform, you have to use the whole continuum. >> Yeah. And I think the continuum message is a good one because if you look at what the evolution is, that was interesting to. Adam went on and did kind of a history lesson in the beginning, it felt like I was in the Star Wars movie, like back in the old days. And then you kind of progressed. You had to be really elite to roll your own cloud. And the hyperscalers did that, you saw that. Now you still have elite technical people, but now it's general purpose, or purpose built. It's like having prefabricated platforms and open source. We've learned that why do you want to reinvent the wheel if you don't have to? So if I want a call center I get Connect, if I want to have a big plugin platform, I can still build on top of and have that SaaS unique application. This seems logical. This is new. (laughter) This is the continuum. I mean, it seems obvious now looking at it, but how far along in are people getting this. Karthik, what's your take on this? >> I think customers are getting it. They are looking at cloud more as an operating system for their future innovation. They liked the concept that they got from the public cloud, which is easy configurability, consumability and automatability of their infrastructure assets. And when you can get that capability as an operating system for your entire enterprise, and you could innovate across the spectrum, that's extremely powerful. We see companies accelerating their adoption to cloud, but we are also seeing over the last three years, a lot of that adoption was using cloud as a migration destination. But now with the power of the cloud continuum, where innovation is available, that so many new services that Adam launched today, you could use truly cloud as an innovation engine. And we're actually seeing that the clients who are using the cloud continuum for innovation are doing much better than the ones that are using cloud as a migration destination. In fact, they're doing two X to three X use of cloud for innovation and uplifting knowlEdge where they are actually using three X more cloud for sustainability purposes. So huge, huge value. >> Yeah, I mean, this is a great point. Great insight, because what you're saying is essentially you can't hide anymore. The projects are either going to be successful or not. You can see whether it's useful or not, and now you're tying cloud adoption and outcomes together. Where you can look it and saying, we need to make this outcome work. Not for building, for building sake. Those projects were discovered during the pandemic. Why are we doing that? So you can't hide that ball anymore. >> Right and everybody's got to do it now, right? I mean, you don't have a choice. The pandemic is now forcing companies to change. They've changed. And that the research shows that the companies that have truly adopted the whole continuum are doing much better than the companies that didn't. >> What's pattern in this continuum research you guys, what's the big takeaway that you guys have found in that study, in that customer experience that you're having. What's the big, Aha moment. >> I think there are a few things. Number one surprising aspect is that the companies that use cloud for a broader innovation objective, actually, were saving more than the ones that use cloud just as a cost saving initiative. That was a big, Aha moment. Number two, when you talk about all of this innovation that AWS provides, sometimes it's easy for organizations to shrug it off saying, this looks like this is only for the elite companies, or this is only for the digitally native companies to follow. But our research showed that the companies that were successful adopting cloud continuum, the ones that we call less continuum competitors, 60% of them are pre-digitally born organizations. And they were reaping the benefits and they were growing faster, saving more, being more innovative than all others. So this is truly usable across the spectrum of the G 2000 enterprise. >> Yeah, and I think it's a no brainer, but now that you have, customers are transforming, they have multiple clouds. You have AWS, Azure, Google cloud, people were trying to find their swim lane. We heard about skill gap shortage. We did some reporting on that, that this idea of multi-cloud maybe not, I can't hire enough people. I'm going to bet on this cloud, maybe use that cloud. How are people looking at that? How do you guys see that the cloud competitive continuum, or how is the cloud competition affecting the cloud continuum from a customer standpoint? >> Yeah. I mean, you got to look at it, do you use the whole continuum? You've got a lot of cases, you got to be on the same cloud, right. You can use the whole, you got to use all the different components, all the different services. So I think we are seeing customers that are picking one and starting with one and then adding others. I see a lot of my customers who are using multiple clouds, but they're using them in different business units, right? So they may pick one business unit to go deep with AWS on, they may go use another business unit to go deep on another cloud, right? So yeah, I mean, everyone is getting multiple, but a lot of they're starting with one and then adding a second one or a third along the way. >> Karthik, this is what I was trying to get out of my story. It's a hard, very nuanced point. But if you look at the success of say Snowflake and Databricks, all bet on Amazon and their superclouds, they are on Amazon, but they're now working with Azure as well, because why wouldn't you want to open up your market? >> Exactly. And even the industry companies that want to monetize their capabilities using the digital ecosystems are doing that. For example, Siemens wanted to bring all their capabilities in manufacturing and machine operating system into a platform called MindSphere. And they knew that their end goal was going to be multi-cloud, but they want to practice, leveraging the power of cloud with one platform. And when they created MindSphere, they started with AWS and they created that solution in the public cloud and private cloud also at the Edge by leveraging the power of cloud from public to Edge and proved it out. And once it started working and they were able to roll it out for customers. Now they are giving customers the choice to be able to use it in other clouds as well. >> Yeah Karthik, you mentioned earlier at the top of our interview about the platform of the cloud and Dave and I were talking on our keynote review. We did a little history lesson of when Microsoft owned the monopoly of windows, the system software, and they had the application suite with office, but they still wanted developers to build on top of windows. Okay. But now with cloud that's one big windows platform like thing. So the developers ecosystem is evolving. And so one of the things we're watching, I want to get your reaction to this. Is in every major inflection point in the computer industry, when new ways to build and write code rolled out, the application owners always wanted their software to run on the fastest platform. Speeds and feeds matter in these shifts, because why would I want to have my software run slower? >> Yeah. >> What is your reaction to that? >> Yeah, absolutely. And again, there's a lot of things that the industry is going through and we are pushing the envelope on digitization. And today's keynote. When you saw the CEO of NASDAQ talking about the technology bottlenecks that were preventing the matching algorithm to be finally taken to cloud. Now that capability that's available at with AWS is what is enabling that matching algorithm to be taken to cloud through the power of Edge. So there's so much technology innovation, that's happening. That's constantly expanding the boundaries of posibilities. >> I mean, that's exactly the point. And I wrote this in my story and it came out on the keynote today, which was Adam saying, the clouds expanding that's the continuum. If it's running cloud operations, does it matter what it is? I mean, it's, if you're at the Edge and you're running cloud, maybe cause you want latency, of course you want to have low latency. Why wouldn't you want outposts. Again, this is all cloud operations. DevSecOps data is now kind of cloud operationalized. That seems to be what's happening. >> Yeah, I think the developers love the fact that they can write for one and put it anywhere, right? And whether it's a EKS on Inside, I don't even know what you call anymore, the public cloud, right? Or all the way out at the Edge, right? You write it once, you can deploy it there and it makes their lives a lot easier. And you know, as you said, it's all about performance. So they get the best option. >> Well, We love having you guys on the theCUBE, Accenture. You guys have really smart, talented people, always great commentary. Dave and I were looking at reviewing the tape so to speak. It's not really tape anymore. It's it's digitally stored on a S3, but we were looking back at 2016 when we first started talking about horizontally scalable cloud and vertically specialized applications. If you look at the keynote today and squint through the announcements, Amazon's going to offer full horizontal scalability and vertical specialization at the app level with machine learning capabilities. This means that you need data to be horizontally addressable, which is kind of counterintuitive, but you're seeing all the success on data lakes and lakes. This is the new architecture. It's kind of proven now, what do you guys think? >> Yeah, again, the aspect of cloud is about democratised innovation. The first element is, even though there's so much infrastructure build-out and infrastructural elements where there's continuous innovation going on, the enterprises and developers are moving from Bivives built decisions to assembling and consuming options. And when they assemble and consume, they want newer and newer services to be available. That is very specific to their industry and specific to functions, whether it is supply chain function or manufacturing function or so on and so forth. For this, there are going to be specific data that is going to be required, or operational for that particular use-case. But the whole idea of predictive analytics and AI and machine learning and data science is about how do you find correlations between operational data for a particular capability, with things that in the previous world was unrelated. For that you need to bring all of this data together. Time will tell whether all the data is going to move to one location or is there going to be distributed computing of that data with more technology, but that's the role that data is going to play in these verticalized solutions. >> Yeah, I mean, that's awesome. I want to get you guys while I got one, a couple of minutes left. Advice to people that look into go this next level. They know the continuum is coming, you guys been providing great solutions and advice to your customers. For the folks watching, what advice can you give where they're just putting their toe in the water or want to go full in? >> Yeah, so, we found in that research that there were some common patterns that were followed by these continuum competitors, the ones that were succeeding or winning in the cloud. And there was namely four of them, the first one, and these four can be adopted by others for them to also win in the continuum. The first one was looking at the power of the continuum, how the technology is evolving and creating a strategy to take advantage of the evolution of the continuum. That's number one. Number two, this is about organizational change. So don't go about this change in a soft manner. There are elements that you need to change within your organization to imbibe this wholeheartedly. That's the second thing. Third thing is one common aspect that all the continuum competitors followed was they put experience at the forefront for everything. For their end customers. Last but not the least. This is a holistic journey and an enterprise wide journey. And this would require CSO level, CEO level commitment on a longer term to achieve this. So with these four things, most companies can achieve the successes that the continuum competitors are seeing. >> Awesome insight, Chris, real quick, 30 seconds. What's your advice. >> Chris: Don't be afraid. (laughter) It's pretty simple. >> The water's warm, come on in >> Yeah, come on in. A lot of gone before you, right? It can be scary. It can be daunting, right? A lot of services. Don't be scared to get in and go at it. >> Yeah, one of the jobs I love about being theCUBE host is, you talk to people many years earlier, you guys got it right at Accenture. Congratulations. You were deploying, you saw this wave of purpose-built before anyone else and congratulations. Great success. >> Thanks, thanks for having us on theCUBE. >> Okay, I'm John Furrier. You're watching us here live in Las Vegas, for AWS re:Invent 2021 coverage. TheCUBE, the leader in tech coverage. (upbeat music)

>>Hey, welcome back to the cubes. Continuing coverage of AWS reinvent 2021. I'm your host, Lisa Martin. This is day two, our first full day of coverage. But day two, we have two life sets here with AWS and its ecosystem partners to remote sets over a hundred guests on the program. We're going to be talking about the next decade of cloud innovation, and I'm pleased to welcome back to cube alumni to the program. Justin Borkman is here, the co-founder and CEO of Starburst and Teresa Tung, the cloud first chief technologist at Accenture guys. Welcome back to the queue. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Good to have you back. So, so Teresa, I was doing some research on you and I see you are the most prolific prolific inventor at Accenture with over 220 patents and patent applications. That's huge. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. And I love your title. I think it's intriguing. I'd like to learn a little bit more about your role cloud-first chief technologist. Tell me about, >>Well, I get to think about the future of cloud and if you think about clouded powers, everything experiences in our everyday lives and our homes and our car in our stores. So pretty much I get to be cute, right? The rest of Accenture's James Bond >>And your queue. I like that. Wow. What a great analogy. Just to talk to me a little bit, I know service has been on the program before, but give me a little bit of an overview of the company, what you guys do. What were some of the gaps in the markets that you saw a few years ago and said, we have an idea to solve this? Sure. >>So Starburst offers a distributed query engine, which essentially means we're able to run SQL queries on data anywhere, uh, could be in traditional relational databases, data lakes in the cloud on-prem. And I think that was the gap that we saw was basically that people had data everywhere and really had a challenge with how they analyze that data. And, uh, my co-founders are the creators of an open source project originally called Presto now called Trino. And it's how Facebook and Netflix and Airbnb and, and a number of the internet companies run their analytics. And so our idea was basically to take that, commercialize that and make it enterprise grade for the thousands of other companies that are struggling with data management, data analytics problems. >>And that's one of the things we've seen explode during the last 22 months, among many other things is data, right? In every company. These days has to be a data company. If they're not, there's a competitor in the rear view rear view mirror, ready to come and take that place. We're going to talk about the data mesh Teresa, we're going to start with you. This is not a new car. This is a new concept. Talk to us about what a data mesh is and why organizations need to embrace this >>Approach. So there's a canonical definition about data mesh with four attributes and any data geek or data architect really resonates with them. So number one, it's really routed decentralized domain ownership. So data is not within a single line of business within a single entity within a single partner has to be across different domains. Second is publishing data as products. And so instead of these really, you know, technology solutions, data sets, data tables, really thinking about the product and who's going to use it. The third one is really around self-service infrastructure. So you want everybody to be able to use those products. And finally, number four, it's really about federated and global governance. So even though their products, you really need to make sure that you're doing the right things, but what's data money. >>We're not talking about a single tool here, right? This is more of a, an approach, a solution. >>It is a data strategy first and foremost, right? So companies, they are multi-cloud, they have many projects going on, they are on premise. So what do you do about it? And so that's the reality of the situation today, and it's first and foremost, a business strategy and framework to think about the data. And then there's a new architecture that underlines and supports that >>Just didn't talk to me about when you're having customer conversations. Obviously organizations need to have a core data strategy that runs the business. They need to be able to, to democratize really truly democratized data access across all business units. What are some of the, what are some of your customer conversations like are customers really embracing the data strategy, vision and approach? >>Yeah, well, I think as you alluded to, you know, every business is data-driven today and the pandemic, if anything has accelerated digital transformation in that move to become data-driven. So it's imperative that every business of every shape and size really put the power of data in the hands of everyone within their organization. And I think part of what's making data mesh resonates so well, is that decentralization concept that Teresa spoke about? Like, I think companies acknowledge that data is inherently decentralized. They have a lot of different database systems, different teams and data mesh is a framework for thinking about that. Then not only acknowledges that reality, but also braces it and basically says there's actually advantages to this decentralized approach. And so I think that's, what's driving the interest level in the data mesh, uh, paradigm. And it's been exciting to work with customers as they think about that strategy. And I think that, you know, essentially every company in the space is, is in transition, whether they're moving from on cloud to the prem, uh, to, uh, sorry, from on-prem to the cloud or from one cloud to another cloud or undergoing that digital transformation, they have left behind data everywhere. And so they're, they're trying to wrestle with how to grasp that. >>And there's, we know that there's so much value in data. The, the need is to be able to get it, to be able to analyze it quickly in real time. I think another thing we learned in the pandemic is it real-time is no longer a nice to have. It is essential for businesses in every organization. So Theresa let's talk about how Accenture and servers are working together to take the data mesh from a concept of framework and put this into production into execution. >>Yeah. I mean, many clients are already doing some aspect of the data mesh as I listed those four attributes. I'm sure everybody thought like I'm already doing some of this. And so a lot of that is reviewing your existing data projects and looking at it from a data product landscape we're at Amazon, right? Amazon famous for being customer obsessed. So in data, we're not always customer obsessed. We put up tables, we put up data sets, feature stores. Who's actually going to use this data. What's the value from it. And I think that's a big change. And so a lot of what we're doing is helping apply that product lens, a literal product lens and thinking about the customer. >>So what are some w you know, we often talk about outcomes, everything being outcomes focused and customers, vendors wanting to help customers deliver big outcomes, you know, cost reduction, et cetera, things like that. How, what are some of the key outcomes Theresa that the data mesh framework unlocks for organizations in any industry to be able to leverage? >>Yeah. I mean, it really depends on the product. Some of it is organizational efficiency and data-driven decisions. So just by the able to see the data, see what's happening now, that's great. But then you have so beyond the, now what the, so what the analytics, right. Both predictive prescriptive analytics. So what, so now I have all this data I can analyze and drive and predict. And then finally, the, what if, if I have this data and my partners have this data in this mesh, and I can use it, I can ask a lot of what if and, and kind of game out scenarios about what if I did things differently, all of this in a very virtualized data-driven fashion, >>Right? Well, we've been talking about being data-driven for years and years and years, but it's one thing to say that it's a whole other thing to actually be able to put that into practice and to use it, to develop new products and services, delight customers, right. And, and really achieve the competitive advantage that businesses want to have. Just so talk to me about how your customer conversations have changed in the last 22 months, as we've seen this massive acceleration of digital transformation companies initially, really trying to survive and figure out how to pivot, not once, but multiple times. How are those customer conversations changing now is as that data strategy becomes core to the survival of every business and its ability to thrive. >>Yeah. I mean, I think it's accelerated everything and, and that's been obviously good for companies like us and like Accenture, cause there's a lot of work to be done out there. Um, but I think it's a transition from a storage centric mindset to more of an analytics centric mindset. You know, I think traditionally data warehousing has been all about moving data into one central place. And, and once you get it there, then you can analyze it. But I think companies don't have the time to wait for that anymore. Right there, there's no time to build all the ETL pipelines and maintain them and get all of that data together. We need to shorten that time to insight. And that's really what we, what we've been focusing on with our, with our customers, >>Shorten that time to insight to get that value out of the data faster. Exactly. Like I said, you know, the time is no longer a nice to have. It's an absolute differentiator for folks in every business. And as, as in our consumer lives, we have this expectation that we can get whatever we want on our phone, on any device, 24 by seven. And of course now in our business lives, we're having the same expectation, but you have to be able to unlock that access to that data, to be able to do the analytics, to make the decisions based on what the data say. Are you, are you finding our total? Let's talk about a little bit about the go to market strategy. You guys go in together. Talk to me about how you're working with AWS, Theresa, we'll start with you. And then Justin we'll head over to you. Okay. >>Well, a lot of this is powered by the cloud, right? So being able to imagine a new data business to run the analytics on it and then push it out, all of that is often cloud-based. But then the great thing about data mesh it's it gives you a framework to look at and tap into multi-cloud on-prem edge data, right? Data that can't be moved because it is a private and secure has to be at the edge and on-prem so you need to have that's their data reality. And the cloud really makes this easier to do. And then with data virtualization, especially coming from the digital natives, we know it scales >>Just to talk to me about it from your perspective that the GTL. >>Yeah. So, I mean, I think, uh, data mesh is really about people process and technology. I think Theresa alluded to it as a strategy. It's, it's more than just technology. Obviously we bring some of that technology to bear by allowing customers to query the data where it lives. But the people in process side is just as important training people to kind of think about how they do data management, data analytics differently is essential thinking about how to create data as a product. That's one of the core principles that Theresa mentioned, you know, that's where I think, um, you know, folks like Accenture can be really instrumental in helping people drive that transformational change within their organization. And that's >>Hard. Transformational change is hard with, you know, the last 22 months. I've been hard on everyone for every reason. How are you facilitating? I'm curious, like to get Theresa, we'll start with you, your perspectives on how our together as servers and Accenture, with the power of AWS, helping to drive that cultural change within organizations. Because like we talked about Justin there, nobody has extra time to waste on anything these days. >>The good news is there's that imperative, right? Every business is a digital business. We found that our technology leaders, right, the top 10% investors in digital, they are outperforming are the laggards. So before pandemic, it's times to post pep devek times five, so there's a need to change. And so data is really the heart of the company. That's how you unlock your technical debt into technical wealth. And so really using cloud and technologies like Starburst and data virtualization is how we can actually do that. >>And so how do you, Justin, how does Starburst help organizations transfer that technical debt or reduce it? How does the D how does the data much help facilitate that? Because we talk about technical debt and it can, it can really add up. >>Yeah, well, a lot of people use us, uh, or think about us as an abstraction layer above the different data sources that they have. So they may have legacy data sources today. Um, then maybe they want to move off of over time, um, could be classical data, warehouses, other classical, uh, relational databases, perhaps they're moving to the cloud. And by leveraging Starburst as this abstraction, they can query the data that they have today, while in the background, moving data into the cloud or moving it into the new data stores that they want to utilize. And it sort of hides that complexity. It decouples the end user experience, the business analyst, the data scientists from where the data lives. And I think that gives people a lot of freedom and a lot of optionality. And I think, you know, the only constant is change. Um, and so creating an architecture that can stand the test of time, I think is really, really important. >>Absolutely. Speaking of change, I just saw the announcement about Starburst galaxy fully managed SAS platform now available in all three major clouds. Of course, here we are at AWS. This is a, is this a big directional shift for servers? >>It is, you know, uh, I think there's great precedent within open source enterprise software companies like Mongo DB or confluent who started with a self managed product, much the way that we did, and then moved in the direction of creating a SAS product, a cloud hosted, fully managed product that really I think, expands the market. And that's really essentially what we're doing with galaxy galaxy is designed to be as easy as possible. Um, you know, Starburst was already powerful. This makes it powerful and easy. And, uh, and, and in our view, can, can hopefully expand the market to thousands of potential customers that can now leverage this technology in a, in a faster, easier way, >>Just in sticking with you for a minute. Talk to me about kind of where you're going in, where services heading in terms of support for the data mesh architecture across industries. >>Yeah. So a couple of things that we've, we've done recently, and whether we're doing, uh, as we speak, one is, uh, we introduced a new capability. We call star gate. Now star gate is a connector between Starburst clusters. So you're going to have a Starbucks cluster, and let's say Azure service cluster in AWS, a Starbucks cluster, maybe an AWS west and AWS east. And this basically pushes the processing to where the data lives. So again, living within this construct of, uh, of decentralized data that a data mesh is all about, this allows you to do that at an even greater level of abstraction. So it doesn't even matter what cloud region the data lives in or what cloud entirely it lives in. And there are a lot of important applications for this, not only latency in terms of giving you fast, uh, ability to join across those different clouds, but also, uh, data sovereignty constraints, right? >>Um, increasingly important, especially in Europe, but increasingly everywhere. And, you know, if your data isn't Switzerland, it needs to stay in Switzerland. So starting date as a way of pushing the processing to Switzerland. So you're minimizing the data that you need to pull back to complete your analysis. And, uh, and so we think that's a big deal about, you know, kind of enabling a data mash on a, on a global scale. Um, another thing we're working on back to the point of data products is how do customers curate and create these data products and share them within their organization. And so we're investing heavily in our product to make that easier as well, because I think back to one of the things, uh, Theresa said, it's, it's really all about, uh, making this practical and finding quick wins that customers can deploy, deploy in their data mess journey, right? >>This quick wins are key. So Theresa, last question to you, where should companies go to get started today? Obviously everybody has gotten, we're still in this work from anywhere environment. Companies have tons of data, tons of sources of data, did it, infrastructure's already in place. How did they go and get started with data? >>I think they should start looking at their data projects and thinking about the best data products. I think just that mindset shift about thinking about who's this for what's the business value. And then underneath that architecture and support comes to bear. And then thinking about who are the products that your product could work better with just like any other practice partnerships, like what we have with AWS, right? Like that's a stronger together sort of thing, >>Right? So there's that kind of that cultural component that really strategic shift in thinking and on the architecture. Awesome guys, thank you so much for joining me on the program, coming back on the cube at re-invent talking about data mesh really help. You can help organizations and industry put that together and what's going on at service. We appreciate your time. Thanks again. All right. For my guests, I'm Lisa Martin, you're watching the cubes coverage of AWS reinvent 2021. The cube is the leader in global live tech coverage. We'll be right back.

>>Oh, welcome back to theCube coverage of AWS re:Invent Executive Summit presented by Accenture. I'm John,  your host of theCube. We're joined by two great guests, Leo Barella, Chief Technology Officer of Takeda and Don Heiliger Managing Director at Accenture. Gentlemen, welcome to theCube. >> Thank you. Great to be here.  >>Last year, Karl Hick joined us to discuss Takeda's cloud journey. I know a lot's gone by the pandemic. Didn't go away as fast as we hoped, but we're starting to see visibility of the future with cloud at narrow and seeing cloud scale. Um, it's refactoring of business models, new opportunities. How's it gone? >>Well, I think it's a, it's going wonderful, as planned actually.  I can, I can share with you that there are definitely some lessons learned, uh, what the plan was quite structured. We definitely discovered that  maybe we should have actually had about 50% of our time, uh, in the planning for organizational change management and communication. And because we definitely, uh, want to, uh, be able to kind of explain why, uh, moving to cloud is actually important to, to our business. Uh, and so, so if you were to actually do it again, uh, I think we would have probably put a lot more time in communicating the value of the program and wild visibly. Now, uh, we're going to be able to move a lot faster than a, than a year ago. Uh, seeing that the community of the Qaeda is, uh, is already, you know, kind of come around, uh, to, to truly understand the value of, uh, of, uh, moving to cloud >>No last year, any Jessie gave up on stage the keys to success for the cloud journey, you guys were in the middle of it. Um, what was the big takeaway, um, on the, on, on your, your journey, because a lot of people are having real situational awareness and doubling down on successes, identifying what's not working and being real agile. This has been the big aha. What's the big aha moments you had, uh, this year? >>Well, I can tell you that. I say from the, the migration of our applications to cloud, which, which is basically table stakes for elimination of our data centers. So at the end of the program, we're likely gonna retain only few application in our data centers, but move more than 80% of our application workloads to cloud. What actually most excited about is, uh, is really our new strategy around data as a digital platform enabler. Uh, so from now on we're, we're really going to be focusing on the value stream of the Qaeda at the understanding of, of digital platforms that we actually want to able to, to, to further consolidate, um, and, um, uh, you know, and globally expand, uh, the, the, the technologies that we have, but old built on a data foundation, uh, that, that is actually governed across the community of the Qaeda. So data actually becomes the center of our strategy. Uh, and then digital is basically just a way for us to actually interact with data, uh, which includes applications, such as machine learning and AI, which we were heavily investing in. And, uh, and we definitely plan on now leveraging more and more. >>And just to real quick, before we go to a central for a second, I want you to double down on that journey dynamics because we're seeing and maybe reporting, and the theme here this year at reinvent is multiple workloads in the cloud changing workloads. You have evolution of workloads, data as the center of it. And then this cultural shifts where you got the, you know, these modern applications at the top of the stack. So you were AIS contributing. So you've got three major innovation theaters kind of exploding. I mean, this is pretty, I mean, one of those is, is mindblowing. Nevermind, all three. >>Yeah. And I can tell you that, uh, you know, um, I'd like to achieve further expand the circle, uh, beyond the Qaeda. We don't necessarily believe that the digital transformation is just about, I don't want enterprise. That is definitely a fundamental, uh, but the digital transformation is truly about, um, connecting the Qaeda as a digital, uh, pharmaceutical company to the overall healthcare ecosystem and be able to basically transact with our partners, uh, in real time, which is the reason why we actually put data at the center because at the end of the day, uh, when other partners wants to interact with our data, the should in real time be able to transact as if they were transacting on their own systems with our own data, especially DCPS and patients, >>Don your, your reaction, because a lot of learnings, new opportunities, you're at the center of essentially doing a lot of great work. We've been documented a lot of it as well. What's your reaction? >>I mean, I just to amplify a lot of Leo's comments already, I think if I, if I think back and on this journey with, with the Qaeda and AWS and Accenture as the power of three, I think, you know, leaning in to that has been a recipe for success. So as Leo said, we've definitely had some lessons learned, but you know, being there with this power of three, I think has been, uh, enabling us to, uh, attack those challenges that have, uh, that have come up and, and really gotten ahead of those. I think the other thing you talked about is this, um, you know, all these different things coming together, you know, before the pandemic, we had, uh, done done some research at Accenture that kind of had two groups of companies with the leader leaders and the laggards. And, uh, it showed, know the difference in revenue growth of the leaders that adopt technology and those that are falling behind and really, um, that gap has widened, but there's a new entrance of companies that have emerged, which is the, leapfroggers the ones that take advantage of all of the things that like AWS has to offer in terms of the AI capabilities, the data capabilities, the foundational elements that are enabling them to really do this compressed transformation journey in a much shorter timeline. >>I think that's been the element that, uh, you know, I think we know you and I have firsthand together with our AWS colleagues of us being able to really do this on a pace that I think has just been on, on the unseen or unmatched in the past. >>Well, we get to the innovation pilots you guys are doing. I want to just jump on that topic for a quick second time. If you don't mind, that's a really important point. I think the people who shifted to the cloud and replatformed, and then learned all the goodness and then refactored their businesses have done great. This notion of leapfrog is people who move and say, Hey, I don't need, I'm going to replatform and refactor at the same time, get the learnings from others. Okay. They get the best practice is so what's the scar tissue from all the pioneers who have been playing in the cloud, who got the benefits are also paving the path for others. This is actually a motivating, cultural and personal kind of impact motivation. People are happier. What's your guys' reaction to this culture of the cloud, this cloud reef, leapfrogging and refactoring. >>Yeah. I mean, uh, w what I'm saying, uh, and, and lovely, or your perspective on this too, but frankly, you know, I think, uh, you know, with, with the, uh, the war on talent right now, that's out there. I think, you know, companies are investing, whether they're leaders, whether they're leapfroggers in this digital, uh, you know, platform I think are attracting the best talent and actually making it a place where people can innovate. And I know we're going to talk about some of the innovations here in a second, but I think that is, um, you know, some, a way to differentiate, uh, right now in the marketplace, given everything that we're seeing around, uh, retention and attraction of talent. I mean, being able to be on the front edge of this is quite critical in any company's view, but, you know, especially when you're trying to attract the best talent in, in, uh, developing, uh, medicines that actually say lots, >>Leo jumping on this wave and moving leapfrogging, what's your perspective on this? >>Yeah. You know, I, I agree to, uh, you know, talent is that talent is key. Uh, and quite frankly, uh, you know, Takeda, we've been at, you know, pharmaceutical company for the past 240 years. Uh, and now what should you really, uh, you know, starting to become a digital, um, pharmaceutical, uh, power. Uh, and, and so, uh, part of the attractiveness of, uh, of joining Takeda for instance, is the fact that, uh, not only you actually get to, uh, you know, uh, be with a company that is investing heavily, uh, in, in, in digital re-skilling and actually training of people, but also you're connecting to the mission of, uh, of literally saving saving lives, right? So basically, uh, the, the, the connection of really this transformation to become a digital superpower, uh, and also, uh, the, the mission of, uh, of really finding new medicines were, uh, for people that actually experienced, you know, for instance, you know, order of disease, uh, it's quite exciting because it's, uh, it's the application of artificial intelligence machine learning, uh, where now you're actually really trying to find someone that is, that is struggling. Uh, and we're now actually connecting them to a cure that, that is drastically changing their lifestyle. >>It's interesting, the agile agility and the speed of innovation really kind of puts away the old analysis of like, what's the payback. I mean, if you, if you can't see the value right away, then you, then you don't know what you're doing. Basically people in the cloud that say I can contribute and leapfrog and get that value. This has been a big part of the business model. And one of the ways people are doing it is just getting involved, starting pilots, doing the projects. Um, so I'd like to have you guys share the project that you guys have got going on with nurse line. Can you share what you're trying to achieve and how has the cloud enabled you to, to innovate, but also capture the value and can, and can you see it, is there, is there a big analysis there's like a big payback it's like you're buying this 20 year project, or how do you guys look at this? >>I mean, the nimbleness of, uh, of cloud, uh, in our ability to come in and fail fast is what's extremely attractive to, uh, to, to the business, right? Because now all of a sudden we can quickly spin up a prototype. We can quickly actually put it out as a product and actually see how effective it is compared to traditional processes. Uh, so for instance, nurse line is actually what we, uh, it's one of the many, uh, innovation initiatives that we actually have going on, but specifically addressing, uh, one of our, um, uh, therapy areas, which is, uh, our plasma derived therapies, uh, plasma and other therapies is actually, uh, the supply chain actually really starts with, uh, the good wheel of a innovative individual like yourself, um, deciding to actually not donate plasma that eventually is being processed and fractionated to deliver medicines that are life savings in most cases is actually the, the literally life savings. >>Um, and, uh, so what we're trying to do is actually really make that experience as flawless as, uh, in, as seamless as possible. Uh, if you, if you, if you have ever experienced, you know, going into Amazon go, uh, where you kind of, you know, walk in, you get some groceries and walk out and don't pass through a register. And, uh, it's the same type of experience that we actually want to provide where, uh, in the past, um, when you're actually donating plasma, obviously it's a, it's a fairly invasive procedure because obviously you need to actually be in a, being a bad and your, your plasma is getting distracted, but there's a lot of paperwork that you need to actually fill in. And, uh, and what we actually did, uh, is now actually enabled that through a digital experience where a donor, uh, they do a short approaching the center can now actually initiate a chat with, uh, with Amazon connect the ILX. >>Uh, and then, uh, depending on the priority, uh, the donor is going to assign to a nurse that can actually be anywhere in the country. Uh, in all of a sudden the nurse can actually initiate, uh, through, through Amazon connect, um, a dialogue with the, you know, with, with the donor, uh, answering some of the questions in the, you know, in the regular questionnaire. So, so now all of a sudden the nurse is actually feeding up the people work for you. Uh, and, uh, and that is actually done through the initiation of a video call. Uh, and we're actually using chime, which is, again, a part of like, you know, the, the, you know, the, the Amazon AWS services. And then basically upon the, the completion of a, of the questionnaire that is action, analytic, Tronic signature, that has been applied to, um, you know, to the form. >>Uh, and so did, this is actually all happening while basically the person is actually walking through the center or walking into the center. Uh, and now all of a sudden, the only thing that they need to do is actually having a signed bat and, uh, and actually initiate the process of, uh, of plasma donation. So all of this is actually done through microservices. Uh, now everything that we do now is actually API enabled and, you know, obviously like many other companies right now, what I should really think about microservices and the usability of, of technology and, and reusable components. So we're extremely excited about the fact that now, uh, that experience can actually be carried on, uh, to, to other parts of the business and that, that, that can actually leverage these technologies. >>That's a great example of refactoring. What's next for you guys, a division Accenture, what's the plans? >>Well, again, uh, the Google got done. >>Well, I was going to say, I mean, I think, you know, we, we started touching on it, uh, experience, right. And, uh, how do we embed more technology experiences that we're all used to? I mean, you know, to get into some of the return to office, the easiest way for me to do some of the COVID testing has been using my, uh, my trusty iPhone. Right. And so, as, as Liam talked about that experience, uh, part of this beyond just the therapies and, and attracting donors is really key for any business to succeed and thrive. Um, yeah, I think it, you know, if you think about, um, you've got the natives that are really more technology-based, you've got the, the Peloton of the world that obviously have, you know, a platform, but also a product you're going to see product and specifically life sciences companies get more into platform enabled, uh, services that they can provide outside, uh, as a, uh, service to others. And I think, um, you know, the, the platform, uh, experience and the user experience, the donor experience, all that I'd say innovating in, in more use cases like, uh, some of the ones you just heard that's what's next, and being able to, uh, use those guys more even externally to, uh, to do even more good for society, >>Leah, your thoughts with that. >>Well, um, you know, what I should really just getting started, right? So it's not a, you know, this transformation is now cloud enabled, uh, but, but w we're systematically actually going through our value chain, uh, and trying to throw the, understand, uh, you know, our customers, you know, again, as a business, we don't actually sell directly to consumers. So we're, we're, we're basically brokering through, but primarily through CPS and hospitals, right, to basically be able to diagnose a disease that can actually be cured with our products. Uh, and we do feel that, uh, you know, there is actually a huge role that we can actually play because obviously we're are experts in the, of, uh, you know, of the disease that we actually cure with our products. So basically the interactions, like the one that I just described nurse line, uh, can actually be directed, uh, not only to the HCPs, but also to the patients, uh, and the access to communities. >>Uh, and so we want to actually continue to provide platforms by which, you know, people that experienced, you know, especially a rare disease can now actually already connect and, uh, and, and, and share, um, you know, th th the sense of community that, that the business is, is so, so very important, right? For someone that physically has, uh, you know, the diseases that we cure. Uh, so again, uh, I think that the systematic approach of API APIs, and actually making sure that the data is actually ready for say the FDA to actually consume, to accelerate the clinical trials or to an hospital to kind of already understand if there is maybe a clinical trial that can be applied to one of the patients that is, that is actually showing some, some side effects that, uh, you know, or, or symptoms that visibly can be cured with, you know, with our, with our products, I think is going to be, uh, you know, ultimately the, the value that we can provide to society. So >>You guys did a great work and a great example. And to me, and this really showcases the management philosophy of cloud and the culture of cloud, where you take something like connect, and you can refactor and reconfigure these existing resources in a way that creates value, that saves lives. And this is the new, this new playbook. Congratulations on an exceptional story. I appreciate it. Thanks for coming on the cube coverage rapist, reinvent executive summit presented by Accenture I'm John ferry, your host, thanks for watching.

(Music) >> Welcome to the AWS executive summit presented by Accenture at AWS reinvent 2021. I'm Lisa Martin, and I've got two Cube alum here with me, please welcome Merim Becirovic, Managing Director of Global IT Enterprise Architecture at Accenture and Chris Wegmann, Accenture, AWS Business Group technology and practices, Senior Managing Director, gentlemen, welcome back to the program. >> Thank you, Lisa, great to be back. >> Thank you, Lisa. Great to be here. >> It is nice to be back in a way right here we are at this hybrid event, but we want to talk about what Accenture is doing with its, with AWS to serving its clients. And then we're going to get into your own internal use case, drinking your own champagne. Chris go ahead and start with you, talk to us about what Accenture is doing with AWS to serve its clients. >> Yeah, Lisa, it's exciting, as you said to be back in this hybrid event and you know, for me, this will be my 10th re-invent and for Accenture we're in year 14 of our partnership with AWS and actually year six of our partnership called Accenture AWS business group. And you know, the focus over the last year has been helping our clients come out of the pandemic stronger than, than where they started. Right? And a lot of that has been around focusing our customers, getting past cloud migration, past cloud modernization, and getting further into what we now call the cloud continuum, starting to truly leverage all the AWS assets and capabilities and services to, to truly speed their transformation. You know, we work with a lot of our customers who are needing to transform even faster today than they were before the pandemic. And, you know, we're focused on helping those customers do that with AWS services. >> So Merim, let's bring you into the conversation. Now Accenture's internal IT organization has been leveraging AWS and public cloud for a while. Talk to me about that you completed the journey a couple of years ago, 95% in the cloud. Talk to me about what you're doing there. >> Sure. Lisa, so our, our journey into the public cloud is complete. As you said, we put a bow on that project a couple of years ago. We started in 2015 and we went all in on public cloud. So we, the number 95%, 95% represents a true measure of everything it takes to run Accenture. Everything addressable is in the public cloud today. So the 95% just represents a small component of things that have to live outside of the cloud. But other than that, our journey to the cloud is complete, and we are very happy being in the cloud because it has opened tremendous doors for us as a business. I'm sure we'll talk about here as we go, but it's fundamentally a different place we live in today and where we were before we were in the cloud. >> Merim, you said something really powerful there a second ago. The Accenture's journey to the cloud is complete. I don't think I'd ever heard anybody say that. Talk to me about the impact, especially during the last 18 months that that cloud journey is delivered. >> I mean, one of the things I am extremely proud of for our collective global teams around the world, when the, obviously the, you know, when COVID hit and the pandemic engulf the world, the only difference for us was that people just did not come into an office to work. Our capabilities in the cloud, our capabilities of having everything in the cloud really made it that much easier for our people to go to work. We weren't fighting over resources around infrastructure. People could just work from home directly. So I'm extremely proud of the collective global team that made all of that happen as part of that execution of all those things. So it was really a very proud moment, I would say for all of us running IT. >> As well, it should be. Chris, talk about that from your perspective of facilitating that massive pivot 18, 19 months ago, and what your group was responsible for doing to enable this cloud journey to be complete. >> Yeah. I always laughed at, you know, Merim and our internal CIO organizations, we call it was our first customer, right. You know, way back when I started working in this partnership, you know, we were already starting to leverage AWS, S3 and EC2, and that insight Accenture, and we took a lot of those best practices and started helping, our clients leverages best practices. So, you know, from an Accenture, we always kind of harvest from internally what we're doing, but, you know, over the last several years, we really are our focused with the CIO organization, Merim's organization has been, you know, expanding the usage of non, you know, I, as I call Maya services, right? So past EC2, you know, past S3. Obviously there's always storage. There's always compute, but you know, truly doing and building serverless applications, truly using, you know, services, fully managed services. So, you know, the CIO organization doesn't have to spend their time doing that. And, for our customers, that's while it's, they're still early on in a lot of their journeys, that's a novel idea is a truly try to sunset IS services or EC2 and things like that, you know, and whether that's, you know, fix some containerization or things like that, I think the other big part is, is the maturing security footprint, right? Obviously, as you use one or more of these AWS services, your security posture, your presence, how you think about security. We created an asset called secure cloud foundation, leveraging many of the AWS services in the security space that have come out like guard duty and others really to help make that security foundation stronger, make it easier for our customers, including CIO to leverage those services and truly enable that move further up the cloud or further down the continuum as we call it. >> Merim, I want to get your thoughts on security from in a, because we have seen such a dramatic change in the threat landscape in the last 18, 19 months. We've seen a huge spike in ransomware. It's getting much more personal. It's now a household word. We've got the executive order. We had this rapid pivot to and hundreds of thousands of Accenture employees working from home. Talk to me about, you feel very confident in the cloud during that you didn't word where's your competence from a security perspective. >> As you said, security is the fastest growth in our business. Collectively, like you said, the bad guys don't sleep. We don't sleep either when it comes to security. One of the things that we're constantly thinking about is how do we turn on a lot of our capabilities as an example. So even, I would say at an enterprise level, it's different when you're running a big multinational corporation, 650,000 people like we do. We can't just turn everything on and hope for the best. We are very scripted in terms of how we think about those services, how we think about the processes, how we work with our CSO organization, so that we're very meticulous and very thorough in terms of what services we turn on, how we turn them on, when we turn them on? How long we make them available, because this is, this is the new world, right? We have extended our corporate structure out into the cloud. That means we have to think of different ways for how we want to consume those capabilities and services. So like Chris said, you know, the, the journey to the cloud for us is complete. A lot of it was I, as I would tell you, a lot of it was lift and shift for less. And we can talk about that if we get time, but it was more about getting into the cloud and taking advantage of the cloud where we are today, because now that we're there, we get to take advantage of all those capabilities that are there. And I would say the best part of being with on, in, in the cloud is also having the, the providers like AWS they are with us, helping us with that security posture. So it's not just us doing this by ourselves. >> So Chris, I want to talk about that Merim just said, this was mostly lift and shift. Talk to us about that. Cause when we talk to organizations in every industry, the cloud transition, the cloud journey is extremely challenging. It's complex. How did you do this? How did you facilitate this and in a relatively short time period, Chris? >> Yeah. And, and you're right. Everyone has conversations I have with my clients. You know, there's a huge debate whether to lift and shift or modernize or build new build cloud native, right? So, you know, in Accenture's situation, you know, very early on, it was identified that we can, we can do a large savings by doing a lift and shift migration, right. We were not a big data center owner, right. That wasn't, we're not a big capital intense organization. So for us, that, that journey we had, you know, colos and that stuff coming up for renewal. And we knew that we could, you know, get some early savings there and really, you know, reduce our footprint and take that investment and then invest it into, you know, true modernization. So Merim and his organization worked very closely to build the factory, to do the migrations, get that done in a very short amount of time and then turn their attention on truly refactoring rebuilding the applications. I'm super proud of the number of applications that we've rebuilt. I'm super proud of the number of applications that, that now are cloud native. And we live in these applications every day. You know, they they're everything from our performance to how we do our payroll and do our time charging and things like that. But which, you know, it was a big reason why, you know, we can access our systems remotely and at home versus going into different systems to get to that stuff. So, you know, it was very much heavily lift and shift early, then really focusing on modernization. And as Merim said, getting, you know, now it's about living there and continuing, continuing to modernize, continuing to accelerate what we're doing in the cloud. >> Yeah. Lisa, its little bit like, so our journey lift and shift was a core component of it. But the minute we decided to go to the cloud, one of the things, the first things we did, as I said, no more vans. So any new capability that we were going to build, we were going to build a cloud native micro-services based, and that's been our standard for the last 3 or 4 years ago. So any new capability that comes along today that we must do custom, we build a cloud native microservices because one of the other things that I've got on my plate is I'm trying to reduce our overall technical debt. So all of these IS platforms, I still have to maintain them, patch them, support them, upgrade them. And I would rather be much more efficient at doing those things as, as I can and reinvest money into refactoring and modernizing the rest of the application, plead through containers through microservices, et cetera, which then gives me the agility right back to actually go even faster, to enable more services for the business. >> Speed is something that we've seen become even more critical in the last 18, 19 months where we needed to everybody pivot businesses multiple times over and over. But part of the challenge there Merim, I want to get your thoughts on this is they are something cultural shift. Talk to me about, you've been at Accenture for a long time. Talk to me about the cultural shift needed to facilitate this massive transformation to cloud and how Chris's team was a facilitator of that. >> So, you know, one of the things for us, I have probably in the last five years spoken to a thousand of our clients, around our cloud journey and this culture conversation always comes up and I will say, you know, the biggest thing for us was interesting. We had those same fears. We had some same in when we first talked about going to the cloud, you know, six years ago, it was very, not everything was there, that's there today. So the teams were extremely nervous and they were confident that we could never be as, as good in the cloud as we were on, on site. Yet here we are six years later and we're constantly finding ways to add value and take, bring value back. And though, it's so same teams. And one of the things is just, we gave them the challenge to say, Hey, this is the future. We're telling our clients, this is where we're going. We have an opportunity here to do something different and they took it and the team really took it on. And they said, okay, let's do it. And they act, and we looked at how we run into cloud the many different ways, whether we're using reserved instances, whether we're using containers, whether we're using, you know, different computer capabilities, we went through all of it and we're running such a highly efficient machine right now that it's like, we're still able to continue to eat out savings even five years after the program. Even two years after the program is complete, we're still able to get savings. >> That's outstanding. That's ROI that every business and every industry hopes to be able to achieve from this. I want to switch gears a little bit now because this is actually pretty cool. Accenture is really focused also on sustainability. You guys have signed onto the Amazon climate pledge, which if you don't know what the Amazon climate pledge, and this is back in 2019, Amazon, co-founded this a commitment to be net zero carbon across businesses by 2040, which is actually 10 years ahead of the Paris agreement. You're in talk to us about that. And from Accenture's perspective, why it was important to sign on to that. >> So on a, on a personal level, I love obviously sustainability as a whole, that I think about the world park for my children that are growing up. So it's very important to me on a personal level as well. But I would say at a company level, what I love about the cloud is I am there right there with them as they make investments. All of our enterprise capabilities are there. We are able to very quickly shift and use those capabilities. So as Amazon, for example, in this scenario creates new capabilities, new compute offerings, new, new storage offerings, whatever it may be. They're doing it with a sustainability lens and me by being in the cloud already, I can then turn to start using those things too. So as much as I can, on that perspective, I'm in a great place with, as Amazon puts these sustainability capabilities out there, I'm right there consuming and making them more efficient. And then the other one is obviously as much of our workloads, as we can get to a cloud native perspective, microservices perspective, then we keep reducing that compute consumption and everything else that goes along with it. And lastly, I would say, you know, the, the other thing is we're very aggressive in managing all of our systems in terms of uptime. So for example, in a data center, most, most organizations don't think about turning off their development environments and everything else. But for us, we're very rigid in this process. And we have a, we have a target of all of our development environments being down 55% of the time. And primarily that's also a sustainability play in addition to a financial savings plan. >> Awesome. Great stuff, Chris, last question for you, as we wrap up here, what are some of the things that you were excited about that's coming in cloud in the next few years? Obviously here we are at, re-invent going to be hearing a lot of news, a lot of announcements about cloud in the coming days. What excites you most, Chris? >> Yeah. You know, obviously the machine learning and AI stuff is, is always the most exciting things right now in cloud. And, you know, we've put a lot of those to use here inside of Accenture as well. And, and our, you know, in our synopsis platform, which we use with our customers to run in a more intelligent operations, we use that internally as well. But you know, one of the things that excites me the most is the continued innovation at the core. Right. And you know, whether that be, you know, chip sets, you know, Merim talked a little bit about, you know, improvement and performance improvement and power consumption, you know, grabbing time, those types of stuff that, that excites me every year, I look forward to seeing what, what they come out with and, and then how we're going to put that to use. >> Well, I look forward to talking to you guys next year, you've done such a tremendous job. You should be proud of the massive transformation that you've done. I imagine this is, would be a great case study. If it's not already written up, it should be. It's really impressive. Merim and Chris, thank you for joining me at the summit. Talking to me about what's going on with Accenture and AWS and some of the things that you are looking forward to, we appreciate your insights and your time. >> Thanks, Lisa. >> Thanks, Lisa. >> You're welcome for my guests. I'm Lisa Martin. This is the AWS executive summit presented by Accenture at AWS reinvent 2021. (Music)

(electronic music) >> Welcome to theCUBE. This is the AWS Executive Summit presented by Accenture and our coverage of this great event continues. Lisa Martin here, I've got two guests with me here to talk about Amazon Connect. Please welcome from Hawaiian Airlines, Will Van Devender, Senior Director of IT Engineering. Will, welcome to the program. >> Thanks for having me here. >> And from Accenture, Erich Chen is here as well, the Hawaii Regional Lead at Accenture. Erich, it's great to have you on the program. >> It's great to be here. >> I feel very overdressed. You can tell I'm on the mainland with my turtleneck and you guys are on Oahu, which is fantastic. And I'm excited that I have a seat on Hawaiian Airlines in just a few weeks. So you guys, let's talk about this technology solution that you put together. Will, I want to start with you. Talk to me about some of the challenges that Hawaiian Airlines was having prior to working with Accenture and Amazon. >> Well, nothing really unique to us. We had the challenges that everybody had with the pandemic and scaling out to work from home, as well as an old legacy stack that had been around for a long, long time. The specific ones that drove us to launch this particular project was we had been running into some talent acquisition issues. We're not of size where we have a huge telecom team that can specialize in IDRs and other things like that. So we need folks that can play a lot of different spaces. And in this particular case, we had a situation where we had really old technology and the people we were bringing in were a lot more savvy on Cloud and those kinds of things. And so AWS Connect was a way for us to take talent that traditionally wasn't inside the telephony space and use them and bring them to bear for that business need. So it kept us from having to scale up to do this. The other thing we had was a big issue with work from home that actually predated COVID. So we had been, we're in a hurricane zone, we had been doing hurricane preparedness exercises and we realized that we had a difficult time scaling our environment to large scale work from home. So even prior to COVID, we had been started looking at the technologies that we had, which ones worked well outside of an office for a distributed workforce. And we had been moving technology in that direction. And so telephony was one of the ones that we had to beef up. And so it was nice to have a good leg up on it when the pandemic hit us. >> Absolutely. I can't imagine how advantageous that was when it struck. And of course we all know how much the airlines were affected. Talk to me about an interesting catalyst for this solution in terms of challenge with talent acquisition and work from home. Interesting impetus for this solution. Talk to me about, are you long time partners, Hawaiian Airlines with Accenture? Talk to me about how you went about looking for the right solution with them as a partner. >> Ah, okay. So Hawaiian Airlines and Accenture had been partnering for many years, but in a much bigger way in 2019, when we solidified a new managed services deal. So Accenture came in to help us out with our day to day operations. And one of the big reasons for that was actually cloud adoption. So we needed a partner that was much more up to date technology wise. And as we started ramping up our engineering and architecture designs and releasing things on new stacks, we needed folks in the operation side that could keep up with that. And not only that, actually enable and push us in those directions. And so when we went out to RFP, Accenture kind of stood out in that area and that's been a good thing. We've had very little friction as we've been going out and acquiring new technology with being able to bring that out to our run and operation space. >> That's critical, especially given the tumultuous times in which we are still living. Erich, let's go ahead and bring you into the conversation. Now, talk to me about you guys at Accenture developed and deployed this solution quickly. We're talking an eight week timeframe. Talk to me about the solution that you architected, about that delivery, and what some of the challenges were along the way that you tackled and mitigated. >> Yeah. Thanks Lisa. I mean, it was, you know, eight weeks when you look back on it, it's hard to believe we did complete it in that timeframe, but, you know, we were able to do it with some strong experts from our side. Some of the challenges we ran into along the way were probably at the very beginning, just securing the right team for Hawaiian to deliver the kind of the proper designs and development upfront, and then helping to kind of manage through the delivery process itself. You know, they were great. They had some great people with some deep expertise, kind of from a business process side of things, kind of paired with our technical and then also industry knowledge of the airlines as well. It made for a really nice, you know, strong partnership where we could get it through in eight weeks. So it was pretty amazing. >> And then walk me through the actual, oh Will, sorry. Did you want to say something? >> Yeah, I was actually going to comment on that, that was exactly what we were looking for was that sort of wholesale partner. So when we went out to modernize our entire telephony stack, it wasn't just call centers. It was the conference rooms, it was the telephony, we went to new phone providers and circuit providers, we moved everyone off of Skype over on to Teams, all the desk phones. And so there was this scope of work that was simply larger than our team. And so what we were looking for from a partner was one, who's done this before, and then two, could you manage the whole piece of work? And so what was nice for Accenture, because they owned our existing operation space, they not only did the AWS Connect piece, they got on the old systems and they brought up all the specs of how the call queues worked, how the call flows worked, they found the old voice talent, they brought those, imported them without us having to do anything over onto the new stack, and then brought it over for testing. So it was just a very minimal lift from the Hawaiian Airlines side. And since they ran our operations, they then moved it over to the run space. And it was just very few man hours on the Hawaiian Airlines side expended for that outcome. >> Wow. It sounds fairly seamless. Erich, how did you guys accomplish that? >> I mean, that's a type of experience and partnership we like to have with our clients, more of an all-inclusive type service. But we're sometimes accused of not having the cheapest prices on the block, but you know, you do get a great, you know, a pretty holistic experience with us and we do try to make it as easy as possible for our clients and bring kind of the full breadth of Accenture to fill in a lot of gaps. >> Well, one of the things, Will, that you mentioned is we were looking for a partner that had done this before, where there's actual proof in the pudding, especially given the, like I mentioned before, the tumultuous market. Erich talk to me about, if we look at Hawaiian Airlines as an example, as a template here, how common or how often are you seeing these same challenges with respect to talent acquisition and work from home? Is that something that really skyrocketed in the last year and a half? >> Sure. I mean, it's maybe a blessing in the type of business that we're in, right. But whenever there are, you know, big, you know, kind of market issues and kind of pandemics as an example, right. Our clients do turn to us for, you know, support to help them through, you know, smaller times of need. And, you know, maybe very compressed issues. So we're very happy to, you know, reach into our larger organization to make sure that we can bring the best of Accenture to them and help them get through these tough times. >> Will, let's talk about how this solution is helping employees, agents get through these tough times. As we know, Hawaii had some really strict travel restrictions on COVID. And of course, one of the things that a lot of people lost during this time, was patience. Talk to me about how the workforce is improving, the employees, the agents, now that you have this solution implemented and a leg up probably on your competitors. >> Yeah, the whole pandemic hit us in a hard way. So we found ourselves, you know, all of a sudden one day waking up and finding that our customer facing support desks couldn't be staffed. People couldn't get into the office and actually get there. At the same time, as you and everyone else knows, flights were getting canceled and customers were calling at a level we'd never seen before trying to reschedule their flights or get credit back or get money back. And so AWS Connect was interesting in that it was one of the things we could ramp up new call centers very quickly. And so we knew we wanted something that was consumption-based because we didn't know how long it was going to last. And we wanted to be able to spin it up, get new agents going, respond to our customers, scale up to the volume, and then be able to decrease it out. So it was a good win there. What wasn't talked about much was the reliability aspect of it. Being on a really old system, our telephony was pretty stable, but our call center internal business facing ones were not. We had a series of outages out there and those outages directly impact our ability to get planes out in the air. There's the sort of customers calling about tickets and about help with flights, but there's also things like cruise, trying to get cruise scheduling done, trying to get staffing to a plane, trying to get things moved around in an airport. And there's a lot of internal desks that deal with those kinds of things. And having that on an incredibly stable technology and stack is key for us. And so we were able to get Connect deployed, and we were also able to front that with a number of other technologies that allowed us to have DR plans. So even if we lost that desk, how can we quickly move that over to manual calls and desk phones and those kinds of things. And so that's been, that part has been very well received. That has helped us out a lot. Our confidence, knowing that if anything should happen, our ability to recover and get back into full operations now is just night and day from where it was 12 months ago. And so thank you all very much for your assistance in getting us to this point. >> Getting that stability and that reliability during a time of chaos that's, and also in a time that can really affect brand reputation, it sounds to me like IT is really helping drive the business forward. This is something that you did in partnership with the business side, because of course during the last year and a half, so many brands have had challenges with reputation and the ability to not do things. Talk to me about that business IT relationship. And was this a facilitator of making that even better? >> Well, it's certainly better. Yeah, we have far better conversations internally than I can ever remember in my time here in Hawaiian Airlines. But you know, when these kinds of emergencies hit, I don't think about it as IT or business. I mean, there's a problem and you got to go fix it. And so we're all in there and IT is one piece of that. How do we get a solution stood up almost overnight in this, you know, very, very difficult pandemic business time? But you know, the business is trying to get talent together and trying to get agents trained and being able to do things like handle these customer calls is very, very skill intensive. So there's a lot of partnership coming in and getting solutions, demoing with the business, dialing them in back and forth, and a lot of collaboration there. And so that builds stronger teams. And that's one of the outcomes I like more than anything else, is we're working together and dialing in the IT and the business needs very much in unison. >> That's probably one of the best outcomes you can hope for. Erich, talk to me about, are you seeing similar things with customers in other industries? Are you seeing that business IT coming together, especially during these challenging times we've been living through? >> Yeah, to varying degrees, you know, that's always the crux of, you know, a successful IT department, right. You know, you're there to serve and support the business side of things, right. We don't do technology for technology sake. But yeah, I think the better ones are getting better, better at, you know, being more fully integrated and it's not a business or IT decision, right, it's a collective kind of team decision. And I think as long as you have people who respect and understand the other side of the coin sometimes, easier the conversation will go. And I think that's what our team was able to do is express, you know, very clearly and concisely kind of what the decisions they had to make were and they could make a decision a little bit easier that way. >> And talk to me, Erich, about the solution, what impressed you? What are you most excited about in terms of what Accenture has helped to accomplish for Hawaiian Airlines? >> Yeah, I was really happy that even, you know, within a short eight week period itself, you know, things always come up as you go throughout a project. And I think the business team was getting excited about the possibilities once they saw kind of the potential of the platform. And so some, you know, requests came up in the middle of the way, you know, in flight. And, you know, our team was able to accommodate a number of the kind of minor enhancements or tweaks to the system to make it even better and serve the business in a better fashion there. >> Gotcha. Will, what is next for Hawaiian Airlines, besides my flight on it in a few weeks? Talk to me about where you guys are going from an IT perspective. >> Well we've rolled out a solution quickly 'cause we needed to, but there's a lot still to be done to dial it in for the business. Where reliability and speed were key, we got those done, but there was some aspects of the old system that were still a little easier. For those call centers where people needed to dial in, get ahold of an agent, and then pass it onto an internal employee, there's still a disconnect between our call center technology, AWS Connect, and the internal collaboration, Microsoft Teams. And that's because Teams really wasn't up to all of the call center technology needs at the time we started this. Things like call recording and things like that just weren't there at the time. So we've got some of our internal desks that still need to be tweaked and integrated more seamlessly between the two platforms or maybe as Teams gets ready, moved back over onto that. So that's, again, the part of it, being able to have this deep conversation with the business, understand their needs, having a partner where you can quickly go respond and go dial it in. And so we don't look at it as our telephony migration is complete. We look at it as we got our first big hurdle done, moving off decades old tech onto our modern stack. And now we're looking at refining it with our partners over the future. >> Right. Phase one, it's always that journey that we talk about. Erich, last question for you. What are some of the things that are coming up next as you help Hawaiian Airlines to continue on this modernization journey? >> Yeah, so more broadly we're really excited because this effort was one of the first or probably more platform centric system integration type projects we've done for Hawaiian. We've been on the operation side, we've done some business consulting worked with them for various business functions already, but this was really more on the application modernization side of things. And, you know, we see that Hawaiian has a number of areas that they're looking to kind of modernize and improve along the way. And we're very excited about, you know, being a strong partner for them in that journey coming up. >> Awesome guys, great work. Congratulations on a huge transformation accomplished during a very chaotic world time period and done so quickly. We appreciate your comments, your feedback, and look forward to seeing what you dial in next. Thanks for joining me today. >> Thank you. >> Thanks very much. >> For Will Van Devender and Erich Chen, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE's coverage of the AWS Executive Summit presented by Accenture. (soft music)

welcome back to the cube's presentation of the aws executive summit at re invent 2021 made possible by accenture my name is dave vellante we're going to look at how digital infrastructure is helping to transform consumer experiences specifically how an insurance company is changing its industry by incentivizing and rewarding consumers who change their behavior to live healthier lives a real passion of of mine and getting to the really root cause of health with me now are simon guest who's the chief executive officer of generality vitality gmbh and niels mueller who's the managing director at the cloud first application engineering lead for the european market at accenture gentlemen welcome to the cube thanks for having us you're very welcome simon generally vitality it's a really interesting concept that you guys have envisioned and now put into practice tell us how does it all work sure no problem and thanks for for having us on dave it's a pleasure to be here so look uh generally vitality is in its uh it's core pretty simple concepts so it's uh it's a program that you have on your phone and the idea of this program is that it's a it's a wellness coach for you as an individual and it's going to help you to understand your health and where you are in terms of the state of your health at the moment and it's going to take you on a journey to improve your your lifestyle and your wellness and hopefully help you to lead a healthier and a more sort of mindful life i guess is is the best way of summarizing it from um from our point of view with insurance company of course you know our historical role has always been to uh be the company that's there if something goes wrong you know so if unfortunately you pass away or you have sickness in your in your life or in your family's life that's that's historically been our role but what we see with generality vitality is something a little bit different so it's a program that really is uh supposed to be with you every day of your life to help you to live a healthier life it's something that we already have in in four european markets in fact in five from this week i'm a little bit behind the time so we're live already in in germany in france in austria and italy and in spain and fundamentally what we what we do dave is too is to say to customers look if you want to understand your health if you want to improve it by moving a little bit more by visiting the doctor more by eating healthier by healthy choices on a daily basis we're going to help you to do that and we're going to incentivize you for going on this journey and making healthy choices and we're going to reward you for for doing the same so you know we partner up with with great companies like garmin like adidas like big brands that are let's say invested in this health and wellness space so that we can produce really an ecosystem for customers that's all about live well make good choices be healthy have an insurance company that partners you along that journey and if you do that we're going to reward you for for that so you know we're here not just in the difficult times which of course is one of our main roles but we're here as a partner as a lifetime partner to you too to help you feel better and live a better life i love it i mean it sounds so simple but but it's i'm sure it's very complicated to to make the technology simple for the user you've got mobile involved you've got the back end and we're going to get into some of the tech but first i want to understand the member engagement and some of the lifestyle changes simon that you've analyzed what's the feedback that you're getting from your customers what does the data tell you how do the incentives work as well what what is the incentive for the the member to actually do the right thing sure look i think actually the the covered uh situation that we've had in the last sort of two years has really crystallized the fact that this is something that we really ought to be doing and something that our customers really value so i mean look just to give you a bit of a sort of information about how it works for for customers so what we try to do with them is is to get customers to understand uh their current health situation you know using their phone so uh you know we ask our customers to go through a sort of health assessment around how they live what they eat how they sleep you know and to go through that sort of process uh and to give them what a vitality age which is a sort of uh you know sort of actuarial comparison with their real age so i'm i'm 45 but unfortunately my my vitality age is 49 and it means i have some work to do to bring that back together uh and what we see is that you know two-thirds of our customers take this test every year because they want to see how they are progressing on an annual basis in terms of living a healthier life and if what if what they are doing is having an impact on their life expectancy and their lifespan and their health span so how long are they going to live healthier for so you see them really engaging in this in this approach of understanding their current situation then what we know actually because the program is built around this model that uh really activity and moving and exercise is the biggest contributor to living a healthier life we know that the majority of deaths are caused by lifestyle illness is like you know poor nutrition and smoking and drinking alcohol and not exercising and so a lot of the program is really built around getting people to move more and it's not about being an athlete it's about you know getting off the the underground one station earlier walking home or making sure you do your 10 000 steps a day and what we see is that that sort of 40 of our customers are on a regularly basis linking either their phone or their their exercise device to our program and downloading that data so that they can see how how much they are exercising and at the same time what we do is we set we set our customers weekly challenges to say look if you can move a little bit more than last week we are going to to reward you for that and we see that you know almost half of our customers are achieving this weekly goal every week and it's really a fantastic level of engagement that normally is an insurer uh we don't see the way the rewards work is is pretty simple it's similar in a way to an airline program so every good choice you make every activity you do every piece of good food that you eat when you check your on your health situation we'll give you points and the more points you get you go through through a sort of status approach of starting off at the bottom status and ending up at a gold and then a platinum status and the the higher up you get in the status that the higher the value of the rewards that we give you so almost a quarter of our customers now and this is accelerated through provide they've reached that platinum status so they are the most engaged customers that we we have and those ones who are really engaging in the in the program and what we really try to create is this sort of virtuous circle that says if you live well you make good choices you improve your health you you progress through the program and we give you better and stronger and more uh valuable rewards for for doing that and some of those rewards are are around health and wellness so it might be that you get you get a discount on on gym gear from adidas it might be that you get a discount on a uh on a device from garmin or it might be actually on other things so we also give people amazon vouchers we also give people uh discounts on holidays and another thing that we we did actually in the last year which we found really powerful is that we've given the opportunity for our customers to convert those rewards into charitable donations because we we work in generality with a with a sort of um campaign called the human safety net which is helping out the poorest people in society and some what our customers do a lot of the time is instead of taking those financial rewards for themselves they convert it into a charitable donation so we're actually also thinking wellness and feeling good and insurance and some societal good so we're really trying to create a virtuous circle of uh of engagement with our customers i mean that's a powerful cocktail i love it you got the the data because if i see the data then i can change my behavior you got the gamification piece you actually have you know hard dollar rewards you could give those to charities and and you've got the the most important which is priceless can't put a value on good health i got one more question for simon and niels i'd love you to chime in as well on this question how did you guys decide simon to engage with accenture and aws and the cloud to build out this platform what's the story behind that collaboration was there unique value that you saw that that you wanted to tap that you feel like they bring to the table what was your experience yeah look i mean we worked at accenture as well because the the the sort of construct of this vitality proposition is a pretty a pretty complex one so you mentioned that the idea is simple but the the build is not so uh is not so simple and that that's the case so accenture's been part of that journey uh from the beginning they're one of the partners that we work with but specifically around the topic of rewards uh you know we're we're a primarily european focused organization but when you take those countries that i mentioned even though we're next to each other geographically we're quite diverse and what we wanted to create was really a sustainable and reusable and consistent customer experience that allowed us to go and get to market with an increasing amount of efficiency and and to do that we needed to work with somebody who understood our business has this historical let's say investment in in the vitality concept so so knows how to bring it to life but that what then could really support us in making uh what can be a complex piece of work as simple and as as replicable as possible across multiple markets because we don't want to go reinventing the wheel every time we do we move to a new market so we need to find a balance between having a consistent product a consistent technology offer a consistent customer experience with the fact that we we operate in quite diverse markets so this was let's say the the reason for more deeply engaging with accenture on this journey thank you very much niels why don't you comment on on that as well i'd love to to get your thoughts and and really really it's kind of your role here i mean accenture global si deep expertise in industry but also technology what are your thoughts on this topic yeah i'd love to love to comment so when we started the journey it was pretty clear from the outset that we would need to build this on cloud in order to get this scalability and this ability to roll out to different markets have a central solution that can act as a template for the different markets but then also have the opportunity to localize different languages different partners for the rewards there's different reward partners in the different markets so we needed to build in an asset basically that could work as a tempos centrally standardizing things but also leaving enough flexibility to to then localize in the individual markets and if we talk about some of the more specific requirements so one one thing that gave us headaches in the beginning was the authentication of the users because each of the markets has their own systems of record where the basically the authentication needs to happen and we somehow needed to still find a holistic solution that comes through the central platform and we were able to do that at the end through the aws cognito service sort of wrapping the individual markets uh local idp systems and by now we've even extended that solution to have a standalone cloud native kind of idp solution in place for markets that do not have a local idp solution in place or don't want to use it for for this purpose yeah so you had you had data you have you had the integration you've got local laws you mentioned the flexibility you're building ecosystems that are unique to the to the local uh both language and and cultures uh please you had another comment i interrupted you yeah i know i just wanted to expand basically on the on the requirements so that was the central one being able to roll this out in a standardized way across the markets but then there were further requirements for example like being able to operate that platform with very low operations overhead there is no large i.t team behind generally vitality that you know works to serve us or can can act as this itis backbone support so we needed to have basically a solution that runs itself that runs on autopilot and that was another big big driver for first of all going to cloud but second of all making specific choices within cloud so we specifically chose to build this as a cloud native solution using for example manage database services you know with automatic backup with automatic ability to restore data that scales automatically that you know has all this built in which usually maybe a database administrator would take care of and we applied that concept basically to every component to everything we looked at we we applied this requirement of how can this run on autopilot how can we make this as much managed by itself within the cloud as possible and then land it on these services and for example we also used the the api gateway from from aws for our api services that also came in handy when for example we had some response time issues with the third party we needed to call and then we could just with a flick of a button basically introduce caching on the level of the api gateway and really improve the user experience because the data you know wasn't updated so much so it was easier to cache so these are all experiences i think that that proved in the end that we made the right choices here and the requirements that that drove that to to have a good user experience niels would you say that the architecture is is a sort of a data architecture specifically is it a decentralized data architecture with sort of federated you know centralized governance or is it more of a centralized view what if you could talk about that yeah it's it's actually a centralized platform basically so the core product is the same for all the markets and we run them as different tenants basically on top of that infrastructure so the data is separated in a way obviously by the different tenants but it's in a central place and we can analyze it in a central fashion if if the need arises from from the business and the reason i ask that simon is because essentially i look at this as a as largely a data offering for your customers and so niels you were talking about the local language and simon as well i would imagine that that the local business lines have specific requirements and specific data requirements and so you've got to build an architecture that is flexible enough to meet those needs yet at the same time can ensure data quality and governance and security that's not a trivial challenge i wonder if you both could comment on that yeah maybe maybe i'll give a start and then simon can chime in so um what we're specifically doing is managing the rewards experience right so so our solution will take care of tracking what rewards have been earned for what customer what rewards have been redeemed what rewards can be unlocked on the next level and we we foreshadow a little bit to to motivate to incentivize the customer and as that data sits in an aws database in a tenant by tenant fashion and you can run analysis on top of that maybe what you're getting into is also the let's say the exercise data the fitness device tracking data that is not specifically part of what my team has built but i'm sure simon can comment a little bit on that angle as well yeah please yeah sure sure yeah sure so look i think them the topic of data and how we use it uh in our business is a very is very interesting one because it's um it's not historically being seen let's say as the remit of insurers to go beyond the you know the the data that you need to underwrite policies or process claims or whatever it might be but actually we see that this is a whole point around being able to create some shared value in in this kind of product and and what i mean by that is uh look if you are a customer and you're buying an insurance policy it might be a life insurance or health insurance policy from from generali and we are giving you access to this uh to this program and through that program you are living a healthier life and that might have a you know a positive impact on generali in terms of you know maybe we're going to increase our market share or maybe we're going to lower claims or we're going to generate value out of that then one of the points of this program is that we then share that value back with customers through the rewards on the platform that we that we've built here and of course being able to understand that data and to quantify it and to value that data is an important part of the of the the different stages of how you of how much value you are creating and it's also interesting to know that you know in a couple of our markets we we operate in the corporate space so not with retail customers but with with organizations and one of the reasons that those companies give vitality to their employees is that they want to see things like the improved health of a workforce they want to see higher presenteeism lower absenteeism of employees and of course being able to demonstrate that there's a sort of correlation between participation in the vitality program and things like that is also is also important and as we've said the markets are very different so we need to be able to to take the data uh that we have out of the vitality program uh and be able in in the company that that i'm managing to to interpret that data so that in our insurance businesses we are able to make good decisions about the kind of insurance products we i think what's interesting to uh to make clear is that actually that the kind of health data that we generate stays purely within the vitality business itself and what we do inside the vitality business is to analyze that data and say okay is this is this also helping our insurance businesses to to drive uh yeah you know better top line and bottom line in the in the relevant business lines and this is different per company and per mark so yeah being able to interrogate that data understand it apply it in different markets and different uh distribution systems and different kinds of approaches to insurance is an is an important one yes it's an excellent example of a digital business in in you know we talk about digital transformation what does that mean this is what it means i i'd love i mean it must be really interesting board discussions because you're transforming an industry you're lowering overall cost i mean if people are getting less sick that's more profit for your company and you can choose to invest that in new products you can give back some to your corporate clients you can play that balancing act you can gain market share and and you've got some knobs to turn some levers uh for your stakeholders which is which is awesome neil something that i'm interested in i mean it must have been really important for you to figure out how to determine and measure success i mean you're obviously removed it's up it's up to generality vitality to get adoption for for their customers but at the same time the efficacy of your solution is going to determine you know the ease of of of delivery and consumption so so how did you map to the specific goals what were some of the key kpis in terms of mapping to their you know aggressive goals besides the things we already touched on i think one thing i would mention is the timeline right so we we started the team ramping in january or february and then within six months basically we had the solution built and then we went through a extensive test phase and within the next six months we had the product rolled out to three markets so this speed to value speed to market that we were able to achieve i think is one of the key um key criteria that also simon and team gave to us right there was a timeline and that timeline was not going to move so we needed to make a plan adjust to that timeline and i think it's both a testament to to the team's work that they did that we made this timeline but it also is enabled by technologies like cloud i have to say if i go back five years ten years if if you had to build in a solution like this on a corporate data center across so many different markets and each managed locally there would have been no way to do this in 12 months right that's for sure yeah i mean simon you're a technology company i mean insurance has always been a tech heavy company but but as niels just mentioned if you had to do that with it departments in each region so my question is is now you've got this it's almost like non-recurring engineering costs you've got that it took one year to actually get the first one done how fast are you able to launch into new markets just from a technology perspective not withstanding any you know local regulations and figuring out to go to market is that compressed yeah so if you are specifically technology-wise i think we would be able to set up a new market including localizations that often involves translation of because in europe you have all the different languages and so on at i would say four to six weeks we probably could stand up a localized solution in reality it takes more like six to nine months to get it rolled out because there's many other things involved obviously but just our piece of the solution we can pretty quickly localize it to a new market but but simon that means that you can spend time on those other factors you don't have to really worry so much about the technology and so you've launched in multiple european markets what do you see for the future of this program come to america you know you can fight you can find that this program in america dave but with one of our competitors we're not we're not operating so much in uh but you can find it if you want to become a customer for sure but yes you're right so look i think from from our perspective uh you know to put this kind of business into a new market it's not it's not an easy thing because what we're doing is not offering it just as a as a service on a standalone basis to customers we want to link it with with insurance business in the end we are an insurance business and we want to to see the value that comes from that so there's you know there's a lot of effort that has to go into making sure that we land it in the right way also from a customer publishing point of view with our distribution and they are they are quite different so so yeah look coming to the question of what's next i mean it comes in three stages for me so as i mentioned we are uh in five markets already uh in next in the first half of 2022 we'll also come to to the czech republic and poland uh which we're excited to to do and that will that will basically mean that we we have this business in in the seven main uh general markets in europe related to life and health business which is the most natural uh let's say fit for something like vitality then you know the next the sort of second part of that is to say okay look we have a program that's very heavily focused around uh activity and rewards and that that's a good place to start but you know wellness these days is not just about you know can you move a bit more than you did historically it's also about mental well-being it's about sleeping good it's about mindfulness it's about being able to have a more holistic approach to well-being and and covert has taught us and customer feedback has taught us actually that this is something where we need to to go and here we need to have the technology to move there as well so to be able to work with partners that are not just based on on on physical activity but also also on mindfulness so this is how one other way we'll develop the proposition and i think the third one which is more strategic and and we are you know really looking into is there's clearly something in the whole uh perception of incentives and rewards which drives a level of engagement between an insurer like generali and its customers that it hasn't had historically so i think we need to learn you know forget you know forgetting about the specific one of vitality being a wellness program but if there's an insurer there's a role for us to play where we offer incentives to customers to do something in a specific way and reward them for doing that and it creates value for us as an insurer then then this is probably you know a place we want to investigate more and to be able to do that in in other areas means we need to have the technology available that is as i said before replicable faster market can adapt quickly to to other ideas that we have so we can go and test those in in different markets so yes we have to we have to complete our scope on vitality we have to get that to scale and be able to manage all of this data at scale all of those rewards at real scale and uh to have the technology that allows us to do that without without thinking about it too much and then to say okay how do we widen the proposition and how do we take the concept of vitality that sits behind vitality to see if we can apply it to other areas of our business and that's really what the future is is going to look like for us you know the the isolation era really taught us that if you're not a digital business you're out of business and pre-kov a lot of these stories were kind of buried uh but the companies that have invested in digital are now thriving and this is an awesome example jeff another point is that jeff amebacher one of the founders of cloudera early facebook employee famously said about 10 12 years ago the best and greatest engineering minds of our my generation are trying to figure out how to get people to click on ads and this is a wonderful example of how to use data to change people's lives so guys congratulations best of luck really awesome example of applying technology to create an important societal outcome really appreciate you your time on the cube thank you thanks bye-bye all right and thanks for watching this segment of thecube's presentation of the aws executive summit at reinvent 2021 made possible by accenture keep it right there for more deep dives [Music] you

>>And welcome back to the cubes coverage of AWS executive summit at re-invent 2021. I'm John ferry hosts of the cube. This segment is about surviving and thriving and with the digital revolution that's happening, the digital transformation that's turning into and changing businesses. We've got two great guests here with guardian life. Nick Volpi CIO of individual markets at guardian life and Kim golly CTO of life. And is at Accenture essentially, obviously doing a lot of cutting-edge work, guardian changing the game. Nick, thanks for coming on, Kevin. Thanks for coming on. >>Thanks John. Good to be here. >>So I wonder before I get into the question, I want to just set the table a little bit. The pandemic has given everyone a mandate, the good projects are exposed. The bad projects are exposed. Everyone can kind of see kind of what's happening because of the pandemic forced everyone to kind of identify what's working. What's not working what the double-down on innovation for customers is a big focus, but now with the pandemic kind of relieving and coming out of it, the world's changed. This is an opportunity for businesses, Nick, this is something that you guys are focused on. Can you take us through what guardian lives doing kind of in this post pandemic changeover as cloud goes next level? >>Yeah. Thanks John. So, you know, the immediate need in the pandemic situation was about the new business capability. So those familiar with insurance traditionally, you know, life insurance, underwriting, disability underwriting is very in-person fluids labs, uh, attending physician statements. And when March of 2020 broke that all came to an abrupt halt, right doctor's office were either closed. Testing centers were either closed or inundated with COVID testing. So we had to come up with some creative ways to digitize our new business, um, adopt the application and adopt our new medical questionnaires and also get creative on some of our underwriting standards that put us at, you know, certain limits and certain levels and how we, when we needed fluids. So we, we, we have pretty quickly, we're agile about decisions there. And we moved from about, uh, you know, 40 to 50% adoption rate of our electronic applications to, you know, north of 98% across the board. >>Um, in addition, we kind of saw some opportunities for products and more capabilities beyond new business. So after we weathered the storm, we started taking a step back. And like you said, look at what we were doing. Like kind of have a start, stop, continue conversation internally to say, you know, this digitation digitization is a new norm. How do we meet it from every angle, not just a new business, right? And that's where we started to look at our policy administration systems, moving more to the cloud and leveraging the cloud to its fullest extent versus just a lift and shift. >>Kim, I want to get your perspective at a century I'm, I've done a lot of interviews with the past, I think 18 months, lots of use cases with a central, almost in every vertical where you guys are almost like the firefighters get called in to like help out cause the cloud actually now isn't an enabler. Um, how do you see the impact of the, of the pandemic around reverbing through? I mean, obviously you guys come to the table, you guys bring in, I mean, what's your perspective on this? >>So, yeah, it's really interesting. I think the most interesting fact >>Is, you know, we talk about Nick raised the, you know, such a strong area in our business of underwriting and how can we expedite that? There's been talking on the table for a number of years. Um, but the industry has been very slow or reluctant to embrace. And the pandemic became a very informed, I became an enforcer in it to be honest. And a lot of the companies were thinking about a prior. Um, but that's, it they'll think about it. I mean, even essentially we, we launched a huge three-year investment to get clients into cloud and digital transformation, but the pandemic just expedited everything. Now the upside is clients that were in a well-advanced stage of planning, uh, that we're easily able to adopt. Uh, but clients that weren't were really left behind. Um, so we became very, very busy just supporting the clients that weren't didn't have as much forethought as the likes of guardian, et cetera. >>Nick, that brings up a good point. I want to get your reaction to see if you agree. I mean, people who didn't put their toe in the cloud, or just jump in the deep end, really got flat-footed when the pandemic hit, because they weren't prepared people who were either ingratiated in with the cloud or how many active projects were even being full deployments in there did well, what's your take on that? >>Yeah, the, the enablement we had and, and the gift we were given by starting our cloud journey, and I want to say 2016, 17 was we really started moving to the cloud. And I think we were the only insurer that moved production load to the cloud at that point. Um, most of insurers were putting their development environments, maybe even their environments, but, you know, guardian had a strategy of getting out of the data center and moving to a much more flexible, scalable environment architecture using the AWS cloud. Um, so we completed our journey into the cloud by 2018, 19, and we were at the point of really capitalizing versus moving. So we were able to move very quickly, very nimbly, uh, when, when the pandemic hit or in any digital situation, we have that, that flexibility and capacity that AWS provides us to really respond to our customers, our customer's needs. So we were one of the more fortunate insurers that were well into our cloud journey and at the point of optimization versus the point of moving. >>So let's talk about the connection with, with the sensors, life insurance and annuity platform also known as a, I think the acronym is, uh, what was that? Why was that relevant? What, what was that all about? >>Yeah. So I'll go first and then Kim, you can jump in and see if you agree with me. Um, so >>It's essentially, >>I suspect you would write John, like I said, our new business focus was the original, like the, the, the, the emergency situation when the pandemic hit. But as we went further into it and realized the mortality and morbidity and the needs and wants of our customers, which is a major focus of guardian, really being, having the client at the center of every conversation we have, we realized that there was a real opportunity for product and his product continues to change. And you had regulations like 7,702 coming out where you had to reprice the entire portfolio to be able to sell it by January 1st, 2022, we realized our current systems are for policy admin. We're not matching our digital capabilities that we had moved to the cloud. So we embarked on a very extensive RFP to Accenture and a few other vendors that would come to the table and work with us. >>And we just really got to a place where combination of our, our desire to be on the cloud, be flexible and be capable for our customers. Married really well with the, the knowledge, the industry knowledge and the capabilities that Accenture brought to the table with the Ayla platform, um, their book of business, their current infrastructure, their configuration versus development, really all aligned with our need for flexible, fast time to market. You know, we're looking to cut development times significantly. We're looking to cut tests in times niggly. And as of right now, it's all proving true between the CA the cloud capability and halo capability. We are reaping the benefits of having this new platform, uh, coming up in live very soon here before. >>Well, I get to, um, a center's perspective. I want to just ask you a quick follow-up on that. Nick, if you don't mind the, you basically talk us through, okay, I can see what's happening here. You get with Accenture take advantage of what they got going on. You get into the cloud, you start getting the efficiencies, get the cultural change. What refactoring has you have you seen? What's your vision? I should say, what's your vision around what's next? Because clearly there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a playbook you get in the cloud replatform, you get the cultural fit, you understand the personnel issues, how to tap the resources. Then you gotta look for innovation where you can start changing. What, how you do things to refactor the business model. >>Yeah. So I think that, you know, specifically to this conversation, that's around the product capability, right? So for all too long, the insurance companies have had three specific sleeves of insurance products. We've had individual life. We have an individual disability and we'd have individual annuities, right? Each of them serving a specific purpose in the customer's lives, what this platform and this cloud platform allows us to do is start to think about, can we create the concept of a single rapper? Can we bring some of these products together? Can we centralize the buying process? And with ALA behind the scenes, you don't have that. You know, I kind of equate it to building a Ferrari and attaching a, uh, a trailer to it, right? And that's what we were doing today. Our digital front ends, our new business capabilities are all being anchored down or slowed down by our traditional mainframe backends by introducing Accenture on the cloud in AWS, we now have our Ferrari fully free to run as fast as it can versus anchoring this massive, you know, trailer to it. Um, so it really was a matter of bringing our product innovation to our digital front end innovation that we've been working on for, you know, two or three years prior. >>I mean, this is the kind of the Amazon way, right? You decouple things, you decompose, you don't want to have a drag. And with containers, we're seeing companies look at existing legacy in a way that's different. Um, can you talk about how you guys look at that Nick and terminally? Because a lot of CEO's are saying, Hey, you know what? I can have the best of both worlds. I don't have to kill the old to bring in the new, but I can certainly modernize everything. What's your reaction to that? >>Yeah. And I think that's, that's our exact, that's our exact path forward, right? We don't, we don't feel like we need to boil the ocean. Right. We're going after the surgically for the things that we think are going to be most impactful to our customers, right? So legacy blocks of business that are sitting out there that are, you know, full, completely closed. They're not our concern. It's really hitching this new ALA capability to the next generation of products. The next generation of customer needs understanding data, data capture is very important. And right. So if you look at the mainframes and what we're living on now, it's all about the owner of the policy. You lose connection with the beneficiary or the insured, what these new platforms allowed us to do is really understand the household around the products that they're buying. Right. I know it sounds simple, but that data architecture, that data infrastructure on these newer platforms and in the cloud, you can turn it faster. >>You have scale to do more analysis, but you're also able to capture in a much cleaner way on the traditional systems. You're talking about what we call intimately the blob on the mainframe that has your name, your first name, your last name, your address, all in one free form field sitting in some database. It's very hard to discern on these new platforms, given our need and our desire to be deeper into the client's lives, understanding their needs, ALA coupled with em, with AWS, with our new business capabilities on the front end really puts together that true customer value chain. That's going to differentiate us. >>Okay. I'm okay. CTO of a live as he calls it, the acronym for the service you have, this is a great example. I hate to use the word on-ramp cause that sounds so old, right? But in a way in vertical markets, you're seeing the power of the cloud because the data and the AI could be freed up and you can take advantage of all the heavy lifting by providing some platform or some support with Amazon, the, your expertise. This is a great use case of that, I think. And I think, you know, this is, I think a future trend where the developments can be faster, that value can be faster and your customers don't have to build all that lower level abstractions. If you will. Can you describe the essential relationship to your customers as you guys? Cause this is a real great use case. >>Yeah, it is. You know, our philosophy is simple. Let's not reinvent the wheel and with cloud and native services as AWS and, uh, provide w we want to focus on the business of what the system needs to do and not all the little side bets, we can get a great service. That's fully managed that has, uh, security patches updates. We want to focus on the real deal. Like Nick wants to focus on the business and not so much what's underneath it. That's my problem. I'm focusing on that. And we will work together, uh, in a nice little gel. You've had the relatively new term, no code, low code. You know, it's strange a modern system, like a lip has been that way for a number of years. Basically it means I don't want to make code changes. I just want to be able to configure it. >>So now more people can have access to make change, and we can even get it to the point where it's the people that are sitting there, dealing with the clients that would be the ultimate, where they can innovate and come up with ideas and try things because we've got it so simple. We're not there yet, but that's the ultimate goal. So alien, the no code, no code has been around for quite some time. And maybe we should take advantage of that, but I think we're missing one thing. So as good as the platform is the cloud moving in calculating native services, using the built-in security that comes with all that, um, and extending the function and then being able to tap into, you know, the InsureTech FinTech internet of things, and quickly adapt. I think the partnership is big. Okay. Uh, it's, it's very strong part of the exercise, so you can have the product, but without the people that work well together, I think it's also a big challenge. >>You know, all programs have their idiosyncrasies and there's a lot of challenges along the way. You know, there's one really small, simple example I can use. Um, I'd say guardian is one of our industries, market leaders, when, and when they approach the security, they really do lead the way out there. They're very strict, very, um, very responsible, which is such a pleasure to say, but at the end of the day, you still need to run a business. So, you know, because we're a partnership because we all have the same challenges we want to get to success. We were able to work together quite quickly. We planned out the right approach that maximize the security, but it also progressed the business. So, and we applied that into the overall program. So I think it is the product. Definitely. I think it is, uh, everything Nick said you actually elaborated on, but I'd like to point out there's a big part of the partnership to make it a success. >>Yeah. Great, great call out there, Nick, let's get your reaction on that because I want to get into the customer side of it. This enablement platform is kind of the new platform has been around for awhile, but the notion of buying tools and having platforms are now interesting because you have to take this kind of low code, no code capability, and you still got to code. I mean, there's some coding going on, but what it means is ease of use composing and being fast, um, platforms are super important. That requires real architecture and partnership. What's your reaction. >>Yeah. So I think, you know, I'll, I'll tie it all together between AWS and ALA, right? And here's the beauty of it. So we have something called launchpad where we're able to quickly stand up in AIDAP instance for development capabilities because of our Amazon relationship. And then to Kim's point, we have been successful 85% or more of all the work we've done with Inala is configuration versus code. And I'd actually I'd venture to say 90%. So that's extremely powerful when you think about the speed to market and our need to be product innovative. Um, so if our developers and even our, our analysts that sit on the business side could come in and quickly stand up a development buyer and start to play with, um, actuarial calculations, new product features and function, and then spin that to a more higher end development environment. You now have the perfect coupling of a new policy administration system that has the flexibility and configuration with a cloud provider like Amazon and AWS that allows us to move quickly with environments. Whereas in days past you'd have to have an architecture team come in and stand up the servers. And, you know, I'm going way back, but like buy the boxes, put the boxes in place and wire them down. This combination available in AWS has really a new capability to guardian that we're really excited about. >>I love that little comparison. Let me just quickly ask you compared to the old way, give us an order of magnitude of pain and timing involved versus what you just described as standing up something very quickly and getting value and having people shift their, their intellectual capital into value activities versus undifferentiated heavy lifting. >>Yes. I'll, I'll give you real dates. Right? So we engage really engaged with Accenture on the ALA program. Right before Thanksgiving of last year, we had our environment stood up and running all of our vitamins dev set UAT up by February, March timeframe on AWS. And we are about to launch our first product configuration into the, of the platform come November. So within a year we've taken arguably decades of product innovation from our mainframes and built it onto the Ayla platform on the Amazon cloud. So I don't know that you can do that in any other type of environment or partnership. >>It's amazing. You know, that's just great example to me, uh, where cloud scale and real refactoring and business agility is kinda plays out. So congratulations. I got to ask you now on the customer side, you mentioned, um, you guys love, uh, providing value to the customers. What is the impact of the customer? Okay, now you're a customer guardian life's customer. What's the impact of them. Can you share how you see that rendering itself in the marketplace? >>Yeah, so, so clearly AWS has rendered tons of value to the customer across the value stream, right? Whether it be our new business capability, our underwriting capability, our ability to process data and use their scale. I mean, it just goes on and on about the AWS, but specifically around ad-lib, um, the new API environment that we have, the connectivity that we can now make with the new backend policy admin systems has really brought us to a new, a new level. Um, whether it be repricing, product innovation, um, responding to claims capabilities, responding to servicing capabilities that the customer may need. You know, we're able to introduce more self-service. So if you think about it from the back end policy admin, going forward to our client portal, we're able to expose more transactions to self-serve. So minimize calls to the call center, minimize frustration of hold times and allow them to come onto the portal and do more and interact more with their policies because we're on this new, more modern cloud environment and a new, more modern policy admin. So we're delivering new capabilities to the customer from beginning to end being on the cloud with, with, >>Okay, final question. What's next for guardian life's journey year with Accenture. What's your plans? What do you want to knock down for the next year? What's what's on your mind? What's next? >>Uh, so that's an easy question. We've had this roadmap plan since we first started talking to Excentra, at least I've had it in my head. Um, we, we want off all of our policy admin systems for new business come end of 2025. So we've got about four policy admin systems maintaining our different lines of business, our individual disability or life insurance, and our newest, um, four systems that are kind of weighing us down a little bit. We have a glide path and a roadmap with Accenture as a partner to get off of all of these, for new business capability, um, by end of 2024. And that's, you know, I'm being gracious to my teams when I say that I'd like to go a little bit sooner, and then we begin to migrate the, the most important blocks of business that caused the most angst and most concerned with the executive leadership team and then, you know, complete the product. >>But along the way, you know, given regulation, given new, uh, customer customer needs, you know, meeting the needs of the customers changing life, we're going to have parallel tracks, right? So I envision we continue to have this flywheel turning of moving, but then we begin another flywheel right next to it that says we're going to innovate now on the new platform as well. So ultimately John, next year, if I could have my entire whole life block, as it stands today on the new admin platform and one or two new product innovations on the platform as well, by the third quarter, fourth quarter of next year, that would be a success. As far as that. >>Awesome. You guys had all planned out. I love, and I have such a passion for how technology powers business. And this is such a great story for next gen kind of where the modernization trend is today and kind of where it's going. It's the Nick. Appreciate it, Kim. Thanks for coming out with a censure Nixon. It's an easy question for you. I have to ask you another one. Um, this is, I got you here. You know, you guys are doing a lot of great work for other CEOs out there that are going through this right now, whether whatever they are on the spectrum missed the cloud way of getting in. Now this notion of refactoring and then replatforming, and then refactoring business is a playbook we're seeing emerge. People can get the benefits of going to the cloud, certainly for efficiency, but now it opens up the aperture for different kinds of business models. With more data access with machine learning. This refactoring seems to be the new hot thing where the best minds are saying, wow, we could do more, even more. What's your vision? How would you share those folks out there, out there, or the CEOs? What should they be thinking? What's their approach? What advice would you give? >>Yeah, so a lot of the mistakes we make as CEOs, we go for the white hot core first, right? We went the other way. We went for the newer digital assets. We went for the stuff that wasn't as concerning to the business should be fall over. Should there be an outage? Should there be anything? Right? So if you avoid the white hot core, improve it with your peripherals, easier moves to the cloud portals, broker, portals, um, beneficiary portals, uh, simple, you know, AIX frames, moving to the cloud and making them cloud native new builds. Right? So we started with all those peripheral pieces of the architecture and we avoided the white hot core because that's where you start to get those very difficult conversations about, I don't know if I'm ready to move. And I don't see the obvious benefit of moving a dividend generating policy admin system to the cloud. Like why, when you prove it in the pudding and you put the other things out there and prove you can be successful the conversation and move your core and your white hot core out to the platform out to leverage the cloud and to leverage new admin platforms, it becomes a much easier conversation because you've kind of cut your teeth on something much less detrimental to the business. Should it be >>What's the other expression, put water through the pipes, get some reps in and get the team ready to bring training, whatever metaphor you. That's what you're essentially saying. There, get, get some, get some, get your sea legs, get, get practice >>Exactly. Then go for the hard stuff, right? >>It's such a valid point. John is, you know, we see a lot of different approaches across a lot of different companies and, and the biggest challenges, the core is the biggest part. And if you start with that, it can be the scariest part. And I've seen companies trip up big time and you know, it becomes such a bubble spend, which really knocks you on for years, lose confidence in your strategy and everything else. And you're only as strong as your weakest link. So whether you do the outside first or the inside first from a weakest link until it's, the journey is complete, you're never going to maximize. So it was a, it was a very, uh, different and new and great approach that they took by doing a learning curve around the easiest stuff. And then, >>Yeah. Well, that's a great point. One quick, quick followup on that is that the talk about the impact of the personnel, Kim and Nick, because you know, there's a morale issue going on too. There's a, there's a, there's a training. I won't say training, but there's not re-skilling, but there's the rigor. If you're refactoring, you are, re-skilling, you're doing new things, the impact on morale and confidence. If you're not, you get the white, you don't wanna be in the white core unconfident. >>Maybe I should get first. Cause it's Nick's stuff. So he probably might want to say a lot, but yeah. Um, what we see with a lot of insurance companies, uh, they grow through acquisition. Okay. They're very large companies grown over time, uh, buying companies with businesses and systems and bringing it in. They usually bring a ten-year staff. So getting the staff to the next generation, uh, those staff is extremely important because they know everything that you've got today, and they're not so, uh, fair with what's coming up in the future. And there is a transition and people shouldn't feel threatened, but there is change and people do need to adopt and evolve and it should be fun and interesting, but it is a challenge at that turnover point on who controlling what, and then you get the concerns and get paranoid. So it is a true HR issue that you need to manage through >>The final word here. Go for it. >>Yeah. John, I'll give you a story that I think will sum the whole thing up about the excitement versus contention. We see here at guardian. I have a 50 year veteran on my legacy platform team and this person is so excited, got themselves certified in Amazon and is now leading the charge to bring our mainframes onto a lip and is one of the most essential. And I've actually had Accenture tell me if I had a person like this on every one of my engagements who is not only knowledgeable of the legacy, but is so excited to move to the new. I don't think I'd have a failed implementation. So that's the kind of guardian, the kind of backing guardians putting behind this, right? We are absolutely focusing on rescaling. We are not going to the market. We're giving everyone the opportunity and we have an amazing take-up rate. And again, like I said, 50 year veteran who probably could have retired 10 years ago is so excited, reeducated themselves, and is now a key part of this implementation, >>Hey, who wouldn't want to drive a Ferrari when you see it come in, right? I mean Barston magnet trailer. Great story, Nick. Thank you for coming on. Great insight, Kim, great stuff for the century as always a great story here, right? At the heart of the real focus where all companies are feeling right now, we're surviving and thriving and coming out of the pandemic with a growth strategy and a business model with powered by technology. So thanks for sharing the story. Appreciate it. Thanks John. Appreciate it. Okay. So cube coverage of 80 of us executive summit at re-invent 2021. I'm John furrier, your host of the cube. Thanks for watching.